


Probably Should Have Finished the Source Material (A RWBY SI)

by cratim



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Asexual main character, Canon Rewrites Abound, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Protag wishes this was a power fantasy, Self-Insert, its not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cratim/pseuds/cratim
Summary: Someone who's seen snippets up to Volume 3 of RWBY, and an analysis video of RWBY, is inserted into the body of one 12 year old Jaune Arc, years before attending Beacon and it's subsequent fall, and does his best with what he's got. Lightly inspired by Hbomberguy's discussion video on the series.  Mainly since that's the info our main dude will be working with.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 33





	1. They Broke the Bitch: Beginning of Prologue

What wakes you up first is the throbbing pain in the left part of your skull. It’s a dull pounding headache that's equivalent to an angry neighbor pounding on your door at 9 in the morning because your dog was barking last night, and he has decided to be the one light in the dark of the homeowners association willing to take a stand against the travesty.

Pointless comparison aside, your head hurts, and you're suddenly awake.

You stretch out a bit, against what you think is your bed, and arms brush along the sides of the bed, and you feel a cool metal bar rub up against your arm, rousing you a little bit more. 

You sit up a bit.

It’s dark out, like it’s the middle of the night. The shutters on the window to the left illuminate the door on the back wall in sections, with little rectangles of white striped underneath the doorknob. Someone’s sitting in a chair next to the door, but it’s too dark and you’re too far away to really get a good look at them.

The room though- you’ve had to get surgeries before, you played a lot of sports, and you got injured twice where you needed surgery. It seems like you're in a hospital room.

You grunt a little and sit up. The bed- hospital bed now that you know where you are- creaks slightly. To your left is a drawer with empty glass on it, probably filled with water at some point, and the other side has a woman sleeping next to it.

She’s an older woman, (maybe in her 40’s?) with light blonde hair. In the dark, it’s hard to get a look at her face, made more difficult by the fact her head is buried in her arms while she’s sleeping. At first glance, you think she might be the doctor, until you notice the business suit she’s wearing, separating lower down into a set of what would probably be office casual pants. She has a shiny necklace on, and in the dark you can’t tell if it’s gold or something else, but you don’t really care. You don’t think doctors tend to do the whole business suit thing anyway, so that’s an easy rule out. 

Moving to where your arms brushed the bar, your hands touch some nasal tubes running up into your nose. You somehow didn’t notice they were there. With a little grunt turning into a yawn of disgust, you pull the tubes out from where they’d dug farther down into your throat. You lay them down next to your torso on the bed, where they sink a little into the indent made by you resting.

You check the woman to see if she noticed your movement. If she was awake, she was doing a real good job of not giving it away. You wonder who she’s here for that she’d wait all night for them. You certainly don’t know her. Maybe she had the wrong room or something? Though the thought brought more questions. Where was YOUR family? Your mom an- Shit.

A sharp pain shoots through your skull. Completely ripping your attention away from the subject of family. Trying to refocus on what you were doing beforehand, or where your family was just made it hurt worse, but weirdly enough only the specific members for the latter. 

Fuck it. Headache has decided your priorities right now, and it’s getting a doctor or something. You begin to slide the covers off to get out of the bed, preferably on the side without a woman on it. You’re still groggy from however long you’ve been out, so you don’t tend to focus on what you look like once the covers are pulled back, and you try to stand up from the bed.

This is revealed to be a mistake when your legs give out almost immediately and you clatter to the ground. Your hands ‘slap’ against the cool tiling of the floor, and you wince as the sound pierces the hospital room. You catch your head, as it feels...heavy, for some reason. Reaching up to feel it, you feel bandages over your left eye, and slight pressure as you pull on the edge of a bandage. 

Chills run down your spine. What happened to you? Was it some kind of car accident? How badly did you hurt yourself? 

A passing thought leads to recognition as you make the connection for why you’ve been getting headaches since you woke up. You look up to see a bathroom across the hall. You need a mirror.

You look back over the bed to check your sleeping visitor. She shifts slightly, but it seems like she’s still out. Good.

Using the bed as a balancing tool, steadily get to your feet. Despite you feeling like you just used them, your legs are acting like you haven’t stood in a week. You take a few careful steps forward, and let go of the bed, confident that you can walk on your own. As your feet walk across the cool tiled floor, you pass a man sleeping in a chair by the door. He’s not your dad, you don’t think. He’s heavyset, with some solid definition in the arms but a bit of a gut that makes itself obvious from how he’s slouched forward. His hair is blond, and in a bit of a crew cut, with a mustache and a large green parka, like it was cold outside and he just threw something on.

With that thought, you distractedly move towards the window. It has to be late out, there aren’t many people walking around, though you are pretty high up. You squint as you could almost swear you saw a dude in a jacket with some kind of animal ears and a tail get something from a stall down below.

Furries are getting bold you guess.

You hear a sound like a jet engine, and see something that looks like an airplane mixed with a tanker boat take off from some distance away. 

What the fuck was that?  
  
It slowly disappears out of view into the night sky, and while you lean a bit into the window to try and keep an eye on it, the flying, tanker-shaped object is already lost from your view. You did get a view of something better though.

When you think of “the moon” you think “Okay, spherical, in the sky one solid piece, just a big night-circle.” and bam give that to a 1st grader as an art project to keep them busy. Easy, marketable, if not a little bland. 

The moon you were looking at was not that however. One side looked like it had been smashed into, leaving exposed pieces of the subdermal layer visible with what you think might be a little bit of the core? You weren’t an astrologist, so you couldn’t say for certain, about what layers were visible, but you did know one thing.

Someone broke the moon. They broke the bitch!

You reel back away from the window. Eggman really pissed all over it, you numbly think.

This is a dream. Except this can’t be a dream because if you acknowledge a dream you're supposed to wake up, that was how that worked because your mind broke the unconscious cycle or something and you were aware of what you were doing making the dreaming bit impossible.

What the fuck. Is any of this then.

You begin to stumble towards the bathroom, and the woman who you don’t know and isn’t your mom because your mom isn’t her even though trying to remember what she looked like is (which is giving you one bitch of a headache) is beginning to stir all the commotion you’ve managed to make.

You make it into the bathroom and look into the mirror.

The face isn’t yours. It’s a kid, you think, and it’s not you. He? Is young, maybe like 10 or 11. Bandages roll over one side of the face, covering up the left eye, and wrapping up around a section of the forehead as well. Blonde hair sticks out from beneath the bandages, scraggly and greasy, like they haven’t had a shower in weeks. Under the bandages you don’t find much of the same, figures they would’ve had to shave to put ‘em on. Scrawny too, like every 13 year old boy before their parents start making them join a sports team to keep them busy.

You turn your head to try and see if he’s behind you or something, but he turns his head too. You weakly raise up a hand and the person in the mirror that isn’t you does the same thing. You see the hospital band gently roll down his wrist as gravity pulls it down.

This isn’t you. 

You don’t look like this. You look like- the headache is sharper this time, stabbing feeling causing you to stumble back and grab where the bandages are. The question remains. 

Who is this?

You back up and you notice the breathing noises coming out of you as your breath quickens. It makes a younger noise as well. Which is weird. Because you don’t know who they’re coming from. Because it isn’t you.

“Shepherd, he’s awake!”

A voice rings out from the side, startling you. The woman is awake, and she’s near bawling now, her hands clasped near her mouth as she seems to be in shock as she looks at you. 

You stand there and look behind yourself awkwardly like someone was standing behind you, just out of your vision. Nothing there but your shadow, which is much smaller sized for someone who isn’t You.

She rushes forward and embraces you, nearly knocking you over as she wraps you in a deep hug. She pulls back as she faces you, a look of concern etched onto her face.

“Jaune, are you okay? How do you feel?”

You pause for a second before you hear yourself speak. In a voice that along with everything else, is not Yours.

“Who’s Jaune?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah that's the first chapter out of the way. I'm going to switch to first person in later chapters so this doesn't come out looking like a homestuck page with all the "you". Criticism and feedback greatly welcomed.


	2. Amnesia’s One Hell of a Plot Tool Huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first couple chapters are gonna be the buildup to Beacon, so our MC can be a bit more oriented to the world, and establish some light world building.

  
“Today, I’d like it if we could try again to ask what the earliest thing you can remember is.”

I look up at the doctor from the floor with much… clearer vision since I got the bandages off a week back.

That had been an informative period of time to say the least, where I had learned where I was, and why I was in a hospital room in the first place.

First; I was pretty sure that I had woken up in the body in one Jaune Arc, of RWBY, which I only knew because of the Hbomberguy video you watched about the series before this happened. I wasn’t knowledgeable about the series at all beforehand. I knew through cultural osmosis the main character was named “Ruby” and had some kind of gun scythe, and some knowledge about other characters but from the video I’d learned about the weird use of the White Fang as some kind of weird BLM analogue that went “too far” trying to get civil rights. 

Which I thought was kind of stupid honestly. They had literal giant monsters to fight, you didn’t know why racism also had to be a thing to fight as well at the same time.

It took concepts from MHA before that was a thing, like semblances instead of quirks, and had whole academies for learning how to be Hunters, before deciding it wanted to rip off Avatar with the whole 4 seasons/elements things with the maidens. There were also apparently like 8 seasons but the video only really talked 1-3, so you had no idea about what happened in more than half the show’s runtime.

Great position for a “Self Insert” or (whatever you were) to be in, honestly.

I had also learned why I was here in the first place.

“I” (meaning Jaune) had apparently gone out to find my sister who’d gone into the woods before dinner when it happened. A Grimm attacked us both. “I” survived with some real bad head trauma, but she didn’t. For some reason it had fled after my Dad had come out to find us since we were taking too long, and we had been rushed to a hospital in central Vale for treatment.

“I” had been facedown in the snow for over an hour until they found me. 

Briefly, Jaunes body felt the phantom sensation of frost biting into my fingertips. The feeling of the cold becoming so awful it felt like I was being burned alive, too weak to move, but still conscious enough to feel the cold.

I blinked and rubbed my fingers together to dispel the sensation.  
  
Ignoring the horrific implications of the thought of the incident, the word “Grimm” had stuck out to me.  
  
I looked back up to the doctor.

He’s got salt and pepper hair, the kind with the black beginning to fade with age. Beneath that, he’s got kind eyes, layered with crows feet, and a mustache that looks more like a comb than anything, almost comically covering up his mouth. I’d feel comfortable placing bets this guy got a kick out of making dad jokes to some of his younger patients.

Which I mean would be me if the circumstances were less… perceivably dire.

“I remember waking up in the hospital bed…” I trailed, still not sure how to continue from that point.

I remembered a lot of mundane stuff before that point, youtube videos you liked, favorite foods, some math you were certain it was inappropriate for an 13 year old to really have a grasp on, political ideology which frankly giving me some fucking whiplash just from the concept of an 12 year old weighing his opinion the corrupt nature of gerrymandering and a surprisingly deep hatred of the American Conservative establishment. I’m glad when I got astral projected or whatever to… Remnant? (I mean I was in the Vale General Hospital, and Vale was in Remnant if you remembered the setting correctly.) That I was given a complete set of information that made me look like a complete lunatic, and a half-set of future knowledge that would legitimately make me look insane.. 

It was the personal stuff, friends, family all of that it was impossible for me to remember before a certain point. I had feelings for sure, and most of those were around appearances. Names were completely lost to me. I could try and name events from my old life but if I tried to go into detail on who was there, that was when the headaches started setting back in again. Really family in general was a “headache subject”.

Heh.

But I didn’t have any of Jaunes. None of his family, his friends, aspirations, inner thoughts, it was like I had completely supplanted his personality. 

Something that deeply worried his family while they visited me. Hence why I was back in the doctor's office again.

“Only that far again?” He asked, his brow furrowing with that same concern I’d seen before. “Nothing about the attack?

“I can do the math problems again if you want me to.” I offered. It was simple addition, subtraction, and multiplication stuff, though I’m ashamed to say the double times tables did give me a little trouble since I was just used to having a calculator on hand.

“No that won’t be necessary…” He trailed off, and turned to mark something off on a clipboard.

“And you still aren’t familiar with… them?”

I could tell he was mentioning the family waiting with bated breath outside the front door.

You shifted uncomfortably. “I know they’re my mom and dad…and I, uh, have sisters. 6, I think.”  
  
“7.“ he corrected, before going quiet.

“Because you remember them, or because that’s what they’ve told you?” He asked softly.

You don’t answer. You don’t really need to.

He marks something off on the clipboard again.

“And afterwards, you didn’t feel anything…odd? Like a warm energy, moving through you, a…” he snapped his fingers and did a sort of uplifting motion with his hands. “A special feeling. Your aura.”

“No.” I answered. But the mention of that did confirm something to me.

He makes a final mark on the board and stands up.

“Okay, I suppose today will just be a short visit then, probably for a while. I’ll just need to talk to your parents and you’ll be good to go champ.” His mustache shifts up a bit in what I can tell is an attempt at a reassuring smile.

I nodded at him, and he disappeared through the door.

I waited some minutes before leaning up against the wall to listen to what they were talking about. I missed the beginning, but luckily it didn’t matter too much.

“...So then why doesn’t he remember us?! He isn’t “fine” if he can’t recognize his own family!”

It was the mom. But the feeling that you got when you looked at pictures of her, and with your family, they didn’t evoke the same familiarity that should’ve been “my” mom. Trying to focus on it too hard just made your head hurt. Focus too hard and you passed out. Fun times all around.

“When the part of the brain that stores memory suffers trauma in the… way it did, it can experience amnesia as a result. He hasn’t shown any issues with his short term memory, and much of his long term memory seems like it is intact, if the way he was able to do math problems without any issue-”

“But he doesn’t recognize us. He doesn’t recognize his sisters!” A gruff voice interrupted. The Dad, I think. “How could you say-”

“When someone suffers amnesia, it isn’t necessarily what they’ve learned that gets lost. It’s why he hasn’t forgotten basic functions like breathing or eating. It’s events, or family in this case, but in separate cases what's lost can be different depending on the case.”

Or, you know, soul transplant. Which was what was happening here. Try explaining that shit to a medical professional.

“Frankly, the fact that he survived being attacked like that by a Grimm without an activated aura or semblance is a miracle by itself.” The doctor continued, “Has there been any word by the Hunters where it might’ve gone after the attack?”

“... I know that payment for treatment is becoming an issue, and with some aura specialists on hand most of the damage has been healed, but with the rapid shift in personality you were telling me about, but I’d like to start screening for dissociative disorders that could’ve-”

I decided to stop listening from there, since that didn’t really apply to me.

I peeled away from the wall at that point, and sank deep into thought. Alright. Okay. I was a 13 year old Jaune Arc, in a universe that worked kinda like Naruto and MHA, with the whole combat schools and military industrial system to fight off monsters etc, etc. And I was the one character that shows up on the first day with your “special anime force field” not unlocked and no cool weapon that can be used for advertising. 

I huffed through my nose at the idea of it. It felt ridiculous to think about and I felt more ridiculous for not being able to say with certainty it wasn’t happening.

I could deal with it though. I’m 13. I had time to go sign up for one of the “military academies” or something and learn how to be a badass from there.

I looked at my biceps. Scrawny, a little bit of muscle but nothing really. To be honest, expected from a kid just entering puberty. 

Ah, FUCK I’d have to go through puberty again. As if it didn’t suck enough the first time around. That’d just have to be the tradeoff for anime powers or whatever.

The door clicked open and the doctor walked back into the room. He took my temperature, asked a few more questions that luckily didn’t revolve around Jaunes - his- my apparent identity death.

The family thanked the doctor, and we were on our way home. I don’t know why, but that was the time I decided that would be the time to pop the question. Maybe it was still me getting acclimated to what was going on, maybe it was me just wanting to get the hardest question out of the way.

I looked at the reflection in the car window, and reflexively shifted my attention back to the front seat. My hair had grown back short, with a patch separated by a long scar with stitches running from where I had been bitten into. The medical specialists using healing semblances did a great job patching me up, but still, looking at myself like that…  
This was gonna be a hard sell.

“So, Mom - Dad?” It makes you feel squeamish inside to say those words to people you have no attachment to. To people I stole from someone else.

“Hm? What’s up Jauney?” Jaunes dad turns from the front passenger seat.

“With what happened, I’d still be able to go back to school right? I still remember math ‘n stuff alright, so I think I’d be okay.” I asked, seeing if I could figure out if I was attending any of the prep academies or something.

He froze for a bit, and then chuckled, like he wasn’t expecting the question. “Sure kiddo, but, uh, we do have some bad news about your school - and your friends, even if you, y-you know you don’t…”

“We decided to move up to the city, and get out of the countryside.” Jaunes mom finishes the statement.

“You were out for a while Jaune, and you know, we’d been considering moving the family out of southern Vale for a while before you and your sister…”

Grief flashed through his eyes, and sympathized. Losing a kid like that...

“...Anyway while you were, eh, out, we packed up and moved the family. The, uh, apartment we’ve been at wasn’t temporary kiddo. That’s gonna be our new home!” He smiled over his shoulder at me. “Finally found one big enough for you to get your own room.”

He sighed.

“Just wish I didn’t have to sell my old Weapon for that. Handcrafted that thing while I was attending Argus Academy. Wanted to send you to Signal or something with the money, you know, then, you know, you could make your-”

“So I couldn’t go to a Hunter-ing school?” I interrupted, not knowing the proper terminology for the type of school. Dread filled my stomach as I realized my plan to be prepared ahead of time would fall apart of I couldn’t get even the basics of what a hunter was, in universe, taught to me.

“Absolutely not!” Jaunes mom yelled from the front. “Even if we had the money now, with what happened to you and your sister, family tradition or not I won’t lose another child to…” She trails off, her voice breaking near the end.

Jaunes dad tried to give me a reassuring look. “Look at the bright side kiddo, you could be an engineer! Like your uncle Thomas! He makes some good money, helping people, making robots with the Atlas military…”

He stopped as saw it wasn’t making me feel any better.

“I’m sorry Jaune.”  
I didn’t respond. I understood their loss, I did, and if I had a kid and they wanted to become a police officer right after they got shot by a burglar, I think I’d reasonably try to talk them out of it, but with the bandages off, a plan in mind, and a destiny to meet, that denial wasn’t an option. 

I knew enough to know who died, and who the big bads who were gonna fuck everything up with were, at least Salem and Cinder, and If I knew who was going to die, I felt like I had the responsibility to stop it. Save Pyrrha, try and keep Yang from getting dis-armed, maybe get lucky and stop people from dying that I didn’t know about prior because there’s a lot of screen time I didn’t watch and Yang and Pyyrha were the only ones I really knew about. But that was gonna take time and training that it looked like I was gonna have to find myself to prep. Before I got to Beacon you needed to learn how to fight without looking like an idiot, and hopefully find someone to unlock my aura before then.

I’d just have to go through a “training arc.”

I hoped Jaunes parents didn’t see me cringe from the front seat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments and criticisms! Can't get better at doing this otherwise.


	3. The Situation As It Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, my rules around Aura are completely ripped from Celtic Phoenix's rewrites of the RWBY series. There are probably a lot of ideas I'll use from there, barring the ones I decide not to for my own reasons like not fitting within my own idea of the world, general theming, and because I'm the author.

My hands clapped as I pushed up from the ground. Immediately I fell back down, hands spread to catch myself, landing with a “thump” before lowering back down to touch your chest to the ground, and shoot back up again. The downstairs neighbors wouldn’t be happy with the noise this late, but juggling going back through highschool again and my little “training” regiment meant I had to use whatever time I had.

I had brought up the idea of going to a lower Huntsmans Academy, citing my own reasons except the underlying need to avert the plot. To protect myself, protect my sisters, to just be better. All on deaf ears. It had begun to be a cudgel between me and Jaunes parents Sepia and Shepherd, which to be honest, I didn’t know how to feel about. I wasn’t their son, and didn’t really have a right to their care, but to them it must’ve felt like I was shoving them away.

I repressed the thought and crouched back down into the push-up position. 

I’d been able to build up some decent definition in my arms, great for a 15 year old back home, but I wasn’t back home, and I was probably going to have to push myself a lot harder if I wanted to be even close to the level the people coming out of Signal would be at, not factoring in weapons or aura control, but two years of trying to whip myself into shape using online programs and some help from civilian school 0-periods were helping try and build an athletic definition. It had been difficult explaining why I’d wanted to go to those when I wasn’t even playing a sport.

I finished the set of 15, ignoring the burning in my arms, and huffed as I crouched on my toes next to my bed, a video of a hunter in action paused on your computer. 

He was in combat against a larger Ursa Major, which had broken past the defenses of some small town over in Mistral. Still crouched, I watched his movements as he stood against the beast, using it as a short reprieve from the workout. They stared each other down, each similarly waiting for the other to make the first move. The hunter brandished a large sword and some kind of riot shield. It was about as close to the same as you would get to what your loadout would be in two years.

I’d still need to find a place to work on using a sword that didn’t involve just going through the motions at a local park once everyone was asleep. I needed to actually fight something that could retaliate if I wanted to actually get better.

He blocked the Ursa’s strikes against the shield, but never took them directly. Always moving enough that they would be able to scrape off at an angle without having to take the full force of the blow. It made sense. It was too large to face down a hit from that thing without getting flung to the side, and comparing raw strength would probably just fling him out of the way. Between the blows, a shot rang out offscreen and from the footage you were able to make out a dark mist trailing from it’s back. It stood up and roared, and the swordsman took his shot. He leapt forward between its legs, carving a chunk out of it’s thigh, and forcing the leg to fold under the beast's weight. 

I rewound from there, I already knew how it ended. Whatever Hunters on the scene were able to kill it swiftly once they had knocked it down, but as I went back I tried to note down how the hunter stood with his weapons, his stance, his footwork, even how he held the overly large weapon in one hand. I repeated a specific 5 second loop where he flips his wrist from a lunge towards the Ursa to back out and cut up from an exposed area on it’s arm, carving a gash into it.

Your hand felt around on the bed for a notebook. You picked one up and examined it. Flipping through, you had labelled this one “plot notes” where you had written down everything you remembered about what happened in RWBY from the video before you got reverse isekai’d into a dying Jaune. There was a couple scribbled notes:

“Ruby - MC, Avatar? Uses a big scythe. Might like weapons. Moves fast.

Yang - Blonde. Ruby’s sister? Don’t know much about. Breaks a dude's leg. Loses an arm. Punches things. Special power = can punch things harder. 

Blake - Catgirl Racism. Gun and sword? Special power is like shadow clone jutsu.

Weiss - Rich, Catgirl racist. Ice powers?

Cinder - Bad guy, fire themed? Must stop?

Roman Torchwick - Onceler looking ass. Stealing dust?”

Probably wasn’t in the most serious state of mind when I wrote this.

I added the question mark there since I felt like it was important to stop whatever her plan was again, but also probably wasn’t the only one antagonist to be concerned about? Salem… was a thing. That I honestly didn’t know how to respond to. There had to be other threats to worry about too, the Big Bad wasn’t just going to rely on one person to get their shit done.

I shut the journal, ignoring the rest of the notes, and tossed it back under the bed.  
Didn’t need Jaunes parents finding that and having some unnecessary questions to deal with.

I shoved that line of thinking away and grabbed a blue spiral I labelled “Combat.” Flipping to a half-filled page, you try and write down some brief notes about how the Hunter moved around the beast.

“Step...thrust...back...twist...slash” I muttered as I doodled a poor diagram of the motion. You couldn’t help sympathizing with your former host's plight regarding being a hunter. If you saw footage of them in action, and somehow your aura-deprived butt was supposed to match up, without any knowledge of what would be going down in the future, you might’ve given up the ghost too. 

I glanced at the notes I had taken regarding how “aura” the magical shield protecting people like Huntsman worked. Aura, especially being a problem now that I knew I couldn’t just walk up to someone and ask them to unlock it for me. There had been laws passed forbidding the unlocking of aura in people not attending or having formal plans to attend a Huntsmans Academy in the future. Some people could unlock it with training, extreme stress, or had it born unlocked, but that usually meant that they’d need to attend a lower huntsmans academy to learn how to use it and any semblance powers that popped up, as well as formally registering with a local office that they’d had it unlocked. The cutoff for unlocking it naturally usually stopped at adulthood around 25 to 30, though the science didn’t mark down a specific date.

Aura tended to scale in power with your own force of will. People willing to persevere through more usually had a higher amount of aura than people who didn’t and Semblances, when they appeared, usually shaped themselves out of the subconscious desires of that person. Science was still out on where the kids-gloves force fields came from scientifically, but there was a lot of religious and scientific speculation on it being an emanation of the soul.

Usually it was ranked on a system of durability from A being extremely high to T being extremely low. Closer to A you were, the more of a hit your aura could take without being depleted, and duration being how long it could be held in minutes of sustained time from 0 to 100. B-20? You could take a hit from a semi, and not get killed, but there better not be a second one. Q-80? You can’t tank as much as Mr.B-rank, but a couple spare bullets would feel like nerf darts, and with higher minutes, you might hold out longer. 

That was all relative though. Relative to how skilled each hunter was, what their semblance was, how much aura they had to dump to use their semblance efficiently, how they interacted with their weapon and tons of other factors that could decide a fight.

Important stuff to understand, the basic mechanics of the world.

I couldn’t help sympathizing with your former host's plight regarding being a hunter. If I saw footage of them in action, and somehow my aura-deprived butt was supposed to match up, without any knowledge of what would be going down in the future, I might’ve given up the ghost too. 

But it wasn’t a matter of what I wanted. I had walked in and stolen someone else’s role in a story, and if I had the information to save lives, I’d need to use it. I owed the people it would affect, to the people Jaune was supposed to love and learn from.

I grimaced. Calling him a “former host” though had sure sounded appropriately shady for what I was essentially doing.

“Hey.”

I slammed the notebook shut, and turned toward the voice.  
Saphron Arc, one of Jaunes two older sisters, leered at me from the hallway.  
She was in college, but this one of her visiting weekends.

“Mom and Dad are gonna be late again tonight.”

“Working?” I asked.

“Yeah.” A pause lingered from where you were crouched on the floor. You slowly moved your finger on the laptops trackpad to close the tab playing the silent video.

“I have some studying I need to do. You wanna go to the drugstore around the corner and pick up some milk ‘n stuff before they get home?”

“Sure.” 

“Cool.” Another pause, as you felt each other awkwardly stare the other down.

I wished I could talk to Jaunes sisters better, but it was obvious I was as foreign a beast to them as they were to me. They knew the old jaune. 13 years of knowing a person, their mannerisms, likes and dislikes, all gone. I tried to help around the house, did my best in school, and tried to be cordial, but everytime it just felt stiff and pretend. They had been close, and when they had lost Tuscan and, by extension, the Jaune they were used to, that changed something irrevocably.

Didn’t help that I was used to similar exchanges back home.

“It won’t be a problem.” I added. She nodded, and moved back to where the girls rooms were situated. I heard Citrine and Porsche arguing about who got to use the bathroom first. Adrian added that Porsche got to use the hot water first last time, but Citrine rebutted that she used all the hot water last time. Jasmine was still with Manz and Marzipan at their dance recital, so luckily it couldn’t descend into full bathroom civil war.

Didn’t matter to me really. I just waited until everybody was asleep and got mine after I came in for the night. I could live with a cold shower.

I slipped on your black sweatshirt, grabbed some lien on the counter, and left the apartment, moving down the stairs, and waving to Jaunes scowling downstairs neighbors, moving a little faster not to invoke their ire over that “damn noise again.”

I stared down at the black hoodie as I hit the base of the steps. Briefly I contemplated getting something a little more eye catching or something. Manz had talked about winning a sweatshirt with Pumpkin Pete, the cartoon mascot for the cereal on it if she got enough box tops, and I had considered the idea myself just to get some free clothes. She hadn’t done so, and I had settled for a white and yellow hoodie instead. It would’ve been a nice conversation starter though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A list of Jaune's current family:  
> Father:  
> Shepherd Arc  
> Mother:  
> Terra Cotta Arc  
> Big Sisters:  
> Jasmine Arc  
> Saphron Arc  
> Little Sisters:  
> Summer Arc  
> Citrine Arc  
> Porsche Arc  
> Manz Arc  
> Marzipan Arc  
> The dead one:  
> Tuscan Arc


	4. In Universe Societal Issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: racism chapter babyyyy

“Is that all?” The middle aged grocer asked.

I tallied again. Soap, milk, some trash bags, some laundry detergent, batteries, that ice cream Porsche liked…

“Yeah that’ll be it.”

“50 lien and 75 cents.” He grunted. 

I reached into my back pocket and felt around for the cash I grabbed on the way out of the apartment. I counted quick, making sure it was all there, and found I was 20 over. I shrugged, and handed over 51 for the change.

“EY!” The man’s brow had set like he’d just seen someone break his front window. He had turned his attention away from me, and I heard the door click shut.

An olive skinned man with a goatee in a jean jacket had entered. Black hair, a piercing, you didn’t see what the problem was, until two canine ears popped up from his head, and you noticed the tail hiding behind his leg. He stopped like a deer in the headlights.

“I just came in to get a-” he started.

The grocer cut him off. “NO! We don’t serve critters here.”  
I saw the man take a step back from having the slur hurled at him, like he was worried the grocer would pull a gun on him. “Critter” was one of the many derogatory for Faunus, others being words like “Halfie” or referring to one as someone’s “Pet.”

Back in my world, it had been 200 years since the civil war, and people still were able to get away with being racist fucks in the systems they perpetuated and maintained by the status quo, as well as the ones confident enough to do so to someone's face. You couldn’t be “racist” to someone's face without a massive public pushback, though that didn’t stop people from being so if they could get away with it, but it was some social improvement.

So how did that go in a world where it had been only 80 years since civil war had freed the Faunus, a minority used as slaves in remnant, from that suffering?

The worst part Vale wasn’t nearly as bad as Atlas was in terms of treatment. But watching what was going on, it was hard not to see the White Fang as “based” if this was the shit people had to suffer through.

“I just-” The man stammered trying to motion over to the aisles.

“Get the fuck out before I call the cops.” The grocer finished, pointing towards the door. “Go find someone that does serve you people. We got a sign on the front, you should’ve read it.” 

“He’s got a right to shop here! There’s no reason not to let him just get what he needs!” I interrupted.

He stared at you before answering firmly. “It’s a private business, kid, and I didn’t ask you.” He pointed to the door again. “Out.”

The spurned man looked to me again for some kind of help. I looked at him, and I looked outside, hoping he would understand what I was saying. After a few seconds, defeated, he slipped back out the door.

The grocer settled back down, and as he turned back to me, his brow eased a bit, and his demeanor softened back to the humble demeanor he presented before, like he didn’t just yell at a man to leave his store just because he looked different from him. His eyes softened and he turned back to bagging the goods like nothing happened.

“We, uh, started in Atlas, you see.” He muttered as he bagged the rest of the goods and handed them over. “It’s a family policy. We get Vale is nicer about these kinds of things, but we got the right, y’know?”  
I stood there for a minute, cheeks burning as I tried to figure out something to do as response to that. Suddenly I had an idea.

As I grabbed the bag, I shifted through it, pretending like I was looking for something. I fumbled around my front pocket.

“Ah, hang on, I think I lost my list or something and I dunno if I got it all actually. Could you…?”

“Yeah! Yeah, no problem. Just, ah, hurry up alright.” I checked his name tag. Kenneth seemed he was in an awful hurry to try and walk back the last minute.

“Thanks.”

I slipped back out the door of the building, pretending I was looking on the ground until I was out of eyeshot.

I found the hassled dude had just started walking away, ears bent down and cursing out the Kenneth for being, totally understandably, a racist shithead.

I tapped him on the shoulder, and waited for him to turn.

“Wha-”

“What’d you need in there?” I asked. “He thinks I’m out here looking for a list, so I can grab what you need.”

He stared me down. “You serious?”

I nodded.

It seemed like he relaxed a bit. “Just wanted to get a sandwich and some chips man. Got off work late and I wanted to grab a bite quick, y’know?”

I nodded again. “Flavors?”

“I guess... a mini-mistrali sub and some barbeque?”

“Gotcha.” I turned on my heels and jogged back into the store, pulling the list from my pocket like I had just found it.

Kenneth, the shithead grocer, nodded at me, and I grabbed the chips and sandwich and added it to the pile. It was 5 extra lien added to the payment, which I meant I had more than enough. Kenneth smiled at me. “You have a good night, and be safe out there, eh?” he chuckled to himself.

I grimaced a smile, left with my stuff, and silently hoped he’d get robbed later. I met the dog-traited man out on the sidewalk, and handed him his order. He stood up from where he was leaning on a lamp post, almost surprised I came back.

“Thanks brother. Here lemme-” He started fishing in his pocket for a wallet.

I’d turned away by then.

“It was 5 Lien, man. Don’t worry about it.” 

It was an odd mix of feelings I had walking away, and my recognition of it made my stomach turn. There was pride- pride that I had helped him out, and spited Kenneth. Pride that I had assisted some “poor, lonely, unfortunate minority”, my conscious rephrased, as if helping him wasn’t the bare minimum of human decency.

I had dismissed the type of anti-faunus racism the show had shown as, “catgirl racism” as a joke, but it felt as harsh and as brutal as the history I had back home, now that I had witnessed it. I’d seen the protests on T.V. of people in the streets arrested as “White Fang members” in Atlas for protesting for civil rights and better working conditions, and in Vale while it was “nicer” people like Kenneth still had the right to decide which patrons they wanted to serve as a private business. Not to mention all the subtleties that came with untreated systemic racism.

It was hard to think of the White Fang as the bad guys from my point of view, especially with the...context of what my old world had gone through before I “left” and, they were the only people the show mentioned trying to do anything for Faunus rights that I remembered. Which made it worse when they became a terrorist group the heroes had to fight.

Guh.

So much for “escapist fiction” huh?

I tried to just think about the video I was watching earlier and the movements again. Should be worrying about getting into Beacon before anything after that, and that still wasn’t guaranteed with me in the driver's seat.

I’d also have to let Jaunes Mom and Dad know we’d need a new grocer or something too. If the racism wasn’t enough, could just say he sold spoiled milk or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So kinda fucked up how a group like the White Fang exists as a parallel to the Black Panther Party, are the ONLY people we see fighting for Faunus civil rights, and are immediately characterized as violent terrorists working with criminal gangs. That aged well huh? Glad no one says/has accused civil rights groups of that in real life right? Yeah, glad we're in agreement on that. Anyways once again, comments and criticisms welcome!


	5. Risk and Reward

Crocea Mors clanked on my belt as I strode away from my sleeping home. The streetlamps seemed to stretch into forever, just sinking past my vision into the dead of the night, with only the sidewalk to accompany it. The dark figures of the city buildings stretched into the yawning night sky, looming and ever present. Some part of me always felt uneasy when the buildings towered over my head like this. Like I was worried some unseen enemy would lunge down from the sky if I looked too hard and found it.

It was almost midnight. Homework had kept me up tonight, but I felt like I was even one night missed could lead to stagnation. Though I had realized just practicing like I was, I had a new problem. I could keep practicing the motions all I wanted but without a sparring partner or someone to work against I was just fighting ghosts. How far had I actually come? I still couldn’t use aura, Jaune’s body was physically stronger but in a world with special powers and magic force fields, how much did that actually count for? 

I’d even gone down to a shooting range to try and work on my aim. Jaune hadn’t used a gun as far as you knew but I mean you needed to use something with range, and it wasn’t like I’d have the money to specially commission a weapon. Definitely didn’t have the money to forge Mors into anything special either.

Like a good, bigass cloud strife sword. Or a bigass Ike Fire Emblem sword. Just any greatsword under the title “big” would do. Crocea Mors was...fine. Basic, boring, unable to respond to any ranged threats, but fine. It could cut things. And block things. Which, I mean, the bread and butter for the beginner, so fair enough. But fuck if I didn’t like to imagine me just swinging one big piece of sheet metal around and cutting a Grimm to pieces with it. It was a pure daydream, I definitely didn’t have enough to Lien to try and get it customly reforged or anything, and I doubt the metal would be good enough for it anyway.

The perks of being under the legal working age.

Something knocked me out of a daydreaming, and I swerved my head towards the park I was en route to practicing at again.

A scream.

* * *

A small goat faunus crept toward the edge of the park.

Slate knew she wasn’t supposed to be out this late. Her dad had warned her about it being unsafe, stories about Grimm that snatched little kids up that crawled out of their beds, “Nevermore that swooped down and gobbled up little kids” he’d say before he pounced on her and tickled her into submission, but she wasn’t scared, she was gonna be a hunter someday, like her Daddy was! Well, he had been a teacher first, and he taught hunters, but that just made him better right?

Besides, she had left her ball out here earlier, and if she waited until morning, Brick would take it! She narrowed her eyes. Brick was mean. He teased her and pulled on her horns, and was always kicking her ball away from her. He said her daddy was some kind of “traitor” and while she didn’t know what that word meant, (and to be honest, neither did Brick) she’d headbutted him for it right in his stupid face, and given him a bloody nose.

“Showed him” she whispered to herself.

She saw her ball sitting under the fence, lodged in the gap in the chain link where Brick had kicked it. 

Past that was some deep grass separated by a chain link fence. There’d been talk by the younger kids that if you climbed the fence and jumped across, the grass would open up and eat you like it was a big grimm itself.

She’d wanted to ask Daddy to get the ball, but he was always telling her to be brave anyway, and she was gonna make him proud.

Slate edged closer and closer to the fence, keeping an eye on the grass all the while. Maybe she didn’t have to climb over to get the ball, but the fact the grass was as tall as her, and it felt like something could be watching her without her knowing.

She knelt down and picked up the ball, breaking eye contact with the fence for only a second to assess her toy.

It was all the predators hiding in the grass needed.

Two forms lunged from the grass, and Slate screamed.

* * *

My legs had started moving before I had time to process what I’d heard. It was a little girl. She was close.

I rounded on the park I had been planning on using like every night. The solid oak tree in the middle had been my sparring partner for a year or two now as I worked on trying to maintain the proper form and moves from the combat videos I found online. I’d made some deep cuts into it, luckily it’s wooden form allowing you to actually get a feel getting more accurate with your cuts while you practiced.

Past that, you saw a little girl being rounded on by two beowolves as she was sprinting towards the entrance. 

The beowolves had seemingly stumbled over each other at the chance of an easy meal, and their forms, despite the low light, were small, almost shriveled. The shadows barely filling the inside of their exposed skeletal shell like they hadn’t gotten a good “meal” in a while. This must’ve seemed like manna from heaven for them.

I yelled at the top of my lungs, trying to draw their attention to a new target, as I sprinted to her, unfolding Crocea Mors into the sword and sheath into it’s shield.

They heads bolted to me, the loudest target currently approaching, and the little girl took this as her opportunity to try and run away. She had gotten halfway before one got on all fours and tried to chase down the easy target. It was too late, I had gotten close enough, and swiped out at it, forcing it to retreat from it’s target.

I stood with the sword held back as the little girl scrambled past me.

“Hang on mister, I’m gonna get my Dad!” she yelled before running off out of my line of sight.

One took another step to the right like it was going to try and run past me to chase her down. I took a step to the right to and clanged the sword against the shield. Their fight was with me.

As the growled in my direction, I finally noticed how big they were. Each was about the size of a great dane, and about a little taller than I was if they stood on their hind legs. My hand gripped tighter on the sword, nervously. They were bigger than me.

I tried to steel myself. I needed to do this. If I was ever going to be a hunter, this is what I’d deal with, more even. I couldn’t pussy out, I’d die here as a failure or survive and keep progressing on the road toward Beacon. There was no alternative. It was oddly comforting know that there’d be no consequence for failure other than death. No embarrassment, no lowered ranking, just the blissful abyss. Or afterlife. Whatever RWBY had going on.

I remembered the starting stance. Knees bent, non-shield foot back, low center mass. I held the sword out to my side. They moved.

One lunged at you from the left swiping across your body. I intercepted it with the shield and braced as I felt the claws scrape across the shield. The one behind it now took the opportunity to jump over it’s friend as I stumbled out of the way and let it slam the chain link fence.

I cut across the body, slicing down where it’s rib cage would be, and it howled in pain before throwing it’s paw back to swipe me away from it. The shield took the brunt of the blow, but I was sent rolling back as I staggered to my feet. Both of them were obviously angry by this point, and tripping over each other to be the one to get the kill first. The wounded one began to approach me directly, while the other one seemed to be backing away to try and force me between them.

I moved backwards, angling myself so I could try and keep the two in front of me.  
Frustrated, the weaker one broke formation and lunged forward to stand and swipe. I lunged forward to intercept the claw with the shield, and tear across it’s exposed belly, pouring out dark mist. Seemingly enough, it gave a final screech, it collapsed to the ground and dissolved, leaving only the bony shell of its mask, and a couple of similarly bony spines as well.

My attention focused on the other one. It bared its teeth, realizing the advantage in numbers was gone without its partner, and lunged to bite. I tried to roll to the left, but it was faster, pinning me down as it’s jaws tried to get a grip on the shield and get to me. It snapped at the metal, trying to get a hold on it with it’s jaws. My sword had been knocked out of my reach, and with both my arms focused on bracing myself against the monster, I couldn’t just reach for it.

As it tried to bite over the shield in its way, something in my brain registered this as familiar to something I couldn’t recognize, and my heart raced with panic trying to figure out how to get out from under the monster. The helplessness. The little girl.

~~The feeling of powerful jaws crushing through my skull and the world dissolving into a red haze.~~  
  
I brought my knees up under me and pushed forward, trying to flip the beast. Maybe it wasn’t the most effective strategy, but I wasn’t thinking “effective.” I pushed up, feeling the hind legs move up slightly. I pushed harder, desperate to get if off as it finally clamped both jaws over the shield and was about to tug up. The old Jaune might not have been able to do force it off, too weak without aura to get it off, but I’d been building strength all over my body to prepare for this. I gritted my teeth.

I’d done squats motherfucker!

I heaved one final time, and heard the beast yipe as it crashed into the ground onto it’s injured side. I lunged toward Jaunes sword, sitting in the grass where it was knocked away from me, and gripped the handle again. I heard a thunk as it spat the shield out of its mouth, now getting in the way of biting me, and turned to face me. I screamed, not to distract it, or to surprise it, but purely out of adrenaline, as my fear turned to anger that I had been so close to death. I cleaved through its neck, cutting across it like a knife through butter, the creature's head floating in the air for a split second before black mist flowed from the mask, the essence of the beast's nature abandoning its form.

I stood up straight. The adrenaline slowly faded, replaced by the dopamine of knowing I wasn’t dead. I fixated on where the mask sat, and my legs shook, and I pointed my sword all around me, trying to find an invisible target still untouched from the fight.

No air came in or out of my lungs as I stood pointing, and I seemingly forgot how I was supposed to breathe. I stopped pointing, and beat my stomach savagely, trying to force myself to exhale so I could inhale again. 

My vision fuzzed, and as I beat my stomach once again, suddenly, I remembered how. I gasped like a fish out of water, bending down as I felt the cool air come in and out, and the adrenaline draining with each exhaled breath.

I had won.

I stood up again. There were no more beowolves, none that I could see at least. I retrieved my shield from where the Grimm had spat it out. Luckily, it hadn’t bent, acting as a solid wedge in the creature's mouth keeping it from ripping my head off.

I pressed a button, and the shield collapsed once again into a sheath. I slid the sword in, a satisfying ‘shink’ echoing out, and trudged towards the entrance, still absorbing what had just happened.

It hadn’t been a good win. My clumsiness from never having a real opponent through sparring had bitten me in the ass, and I had been unprepared for the movements a real Grimm would make. For all of my “training”, I had still been so close to getting killed by basic Grimm. I was still fucking useless if all it took was two beowolves to make it that close.

“Well then.”

I whirled around at the voice interrupting my self doubt. Foot back, knees bent, lean forward, sword ready.

A graying, red haired man in a black wife beater and jeans, built like a brick shithouse, stood just beyond the gates. He held a large halberd over his right shoulder, and had his other hand on his hip. He had the expression on his face like he was both impressed and amused by what he had seen. 

“Seems you took care of things,” he continued.

I stood there for a second, not really registering what he was saying.

“Yeah.” I finally responded.

“So was,” he gestured at me and the Crocea Mors, before waving out to where I had fought, “some kinda suicide attempt, or is the new hip thing with students these days turning off their aura and fighting with silverware.”

“Someone screamed, and I-” There was a hazy memory there, one that wasn’t mine and I was still doing my best to not think about “I needed to do something.”

The little girl. I started toward the fence, faster. “There was a little girl, is she okay? I didn’t see if there were any more but she said she was gonna get her Dad but I didn’t…” I trailed off. Had there been more. Beowolves were like wolves, and they moved in packs right? So what was stopping more from hunting her down once I had my back turned.

“She made it back safe, and I thank you for that.” He nodded toward me. “But you could’ve got yourself killed just as easily.”

I sat there for a minute, not really knowing how to respond to the statement. 

“Yeah, probably?” 

“Yeah. Probably. You a student at Signal, or any of the other schools?”

I shrugged. “No.”

“Yeah, I figured that. Too far north.You even got your aura unlocked?”

“No.” If he had seen the fight he should’ve been able to figure that much.

“Suicide it was then.” 

“I’m going to Beacon.” I stated. “I needed the experience.”

“You’re gonna go to Beacon, with no aura, no semblance, and no lower academy training.” He stated bluntly.

I straightened up and looked him in the eyes.”I’m going to Beacon.” I repeated. “And I’ve been trying to learn on my own.”

“Why’s that? You couldn’t have just gone when everyone else did?” He questioned, narrowing his eyes. “Or is this ‘hunter’ thing just happening now?”

“I- My family didn’t have the money.” My eyes were suddenly very interesting looking at his mace and not his own. “A... family member got hurt, so we had to move at the last minute.”

He hefted the weapon over his shoulder and planted it in the road, leaning on it. 

“How old are you kid?”

“15.”

“15...” he repeated, sizing me up, before looking up at the sky like he was mulling something over. He straightened his back and looked back down. “I’ve worked with worse.”

He hefted the halberd and motioned to me. “Alright. C’mon, follow me.”

I squinted at him. “Man, I don’t know you.”

“Just- jackass if you want any chance of getting into Beacon Academy, you’re gonna want to come with me.” With that, he turned on his heels and stalked back up the street, carrying the mace larger than his head like it was nothing. 

I checked my Scroll, and had the police ready speed dial. 

No sense in not being safe about it.

* * *

It was a nice house. Nice linoleum floor, mahogany coffee table. Wood siding like a house from the 60’s really gave it a ‘comfy’ flair. Didn’t see how it was relevant to Beacon though.

I saw the little girl from the park perched on the steps, seemingly unhurt. She sprinted down them, and when I thought she was going to stop or something, I knelt down. She did not.

She ran at full speed, bashing into my stomach with the small ram horns growing out of her skull, knocking the wind out of me as I hit the ground like a rock.

“Thank you for the help Mister!” she said sweetly as I gasped on the floor.

“S’fine. Dun wrry bt it.” I wheezed. The older man laughed and swung her over his head, onto his back. “Now Slate, no headbutts on people we like, remember?”

She giggled and he placed her back down. She ran into another room, and he motioned to keep following him.

I followed him down a set of stairs to a screen door, which he slid open.

“So you are taking me down into your basement.” 

“You get one more and then I take back the offer.”

He flicked on a light. The room illuminated itself. It was a gymnasium, with combat dummies, treadmills, practice weapons, scoreboards for aura meter, and god knows what else lined the walls.

“You built a gym onto your house?” I asked incredulously.

“What? No!” He barked. He strode across the room through another door. 

Sitting in the middle of the gym floor you followed him again. This time into what looked like a waiting room, with what looked like a registration desk on one side and a set of double doors on the other, leading to the outside.

While he was fiddling with something in the registration desk, I checked out the double doors. They lead to a city street, and I saw cars parked across the way. I backed away from the entrance, and looked up at the entrance. A large sign sat overhead; “Chiron’s Corner” in bright yellow font, and lower, a seal of the city marking it as legitimate.

Chiron stood at the desk. “Was a hunter for a while, before I became a combat instructor at the Signal. Got sick of it, so I retired, but then I got bored, so I decided to start a little tutoring business. For people to brush up on their skills, train, spar. Whatever they wanna do.”

I walked back inside. “So then what am I going to…?”

He stared me in the eyes. “How bad do you wanna get into Beacon?”

I stared at him right back. “I need to get there. People will die if I don’t.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Break in anyway.”

He paused a bit at that. “That’s real bad. Well, I’m not unlocking your aura. Got a legitimate business and I’m not losing that to help you. Get a crime boss or something. But!” He held up his finger. “You saved my daughter, and I don’t forget the debt. You come by here every day at, say, 10:00PM, and we’ll see if we can’t get you good enough to fake a combat test or somethin’.”

“I-are you actually serious about this? Training me to fight?” I stared, dumbfounded. I had hoped for some kind of help, but training by a combat instructor? That would be amazing, even with only the two years I’d have.

“I’m serious,” He said firmly. “You come here everyday and bust your ass, and I’ll see how much of a fighter I can make out of you. But again.” He pointed his index and pointer finger at me. “The aura thing will be on you, and I’ve never heard of someone making it into Beacon without it.”

“I-I was just going to fake my transcripts or something.”

Chiron barked a laugh and clapped me on the back. “That’s the spirit kid. I’ll see you tomorrow, now get the fuck outta my club. I gotta ground my daughter for sneaking out, and hit the hay.” He handed me a keycard to get in after dark, and flipped a switch to turn the lights outside off. “And for Oum’s sake never do that kind of thing again until we’re at least done working here. Would look bad for the neighborhood.”

As he pushed me out the door, I was flooded with emotion. This is what I had needed. I might not be a total parasite once I reached Beacon because of this! I’d still have shit weapons, but I’d have the training as if I had been to a lower academy before this. I was going to get in, no matter what, but semi-formal training would definitely help.

The door clanked shut behind me. I took a couple steps, and had a second thought about walking back home. I had just gotten attacked tonight. I probably shouldn’t walk home. 

I pulled up the “Hitchhike” app on my scroll and scheduled a ride, and absentmindedly rubbed the itch that had sprouted on the western part of my scalp.

* * *

Chiron locked the front door from the inside, and peered out from the door glass. The car picking up the kid pulled away. Good. They'd done enough for one night.   
He squinted. The shadows dipped in the night, obscuring anything not touched by the havens lit by the streetlights. The ends of the streets trailed into infinity with the lamps serving as the only indicator against the overbearing midnight.

There shouldn’t have been beowolves this far into the city. They weren’t stupid. They weren’t too far from the countryside, maybe half an hour away depending on the drive, but when one wandered in, they were killed by a hunter within the hour. The surveillance on the city borders was usually tight enough that it was easy to track the occasional Grimm that got gutsy enough to try their luck for a big game. Had they gotten so sloppy that those two had made it in this far?

He frowned. He’d have some calls to make. Some friends to check in with. See if Vale’s Hunters Guild had slipped on surveillance or if the new Hunters these days were too sloppy to track a couple starving Grimm in a city of all fucking places. 

Chiron paced back across the gym floor. Regardless, he needed to get some shuteye, and Slate needed some sort of punishment for sneaking out at night, though this was probably as good a lesson as any. No dessert for two days. Maybe. Depending on how much she put on the sad-eyes routine. He chuckled lightly, but sank back into melancholy as he locked the back door into the gym.

He rubbed the back of his head. Maybe it was old instincts, or maybe he was just picking up paranoia as a first step on the way to being senile, but he couldn’t shake the bad feeling in his gut.

Like maybe tonight wasn’t the first time this would happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyy five chapters in and we get the first fight scene. Feedback and criticism welcomed, won't get better without it.


	6. Preparation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief look at "Jaunes" training as Beacon gets closer and closer.

The first week had been hard, I wasn’t afraid to admit that. Once I had told him what I had been doing before this to try and train, using what school offered and what I did on my own time, he decided to throw me directly into combat training, to see what I had been able to pick up on my own.

It had been like throwing myself at a brick wall.

Probably made worse by the fact that he had a semblance that allowed him to harden any part of his body he focused on to the level it was like hitting a rock, to which it was aptly named Rockskin. And getting punched by him was certainly proof of that name because it did feel like getting punched by a boulder.

Fun first couple days.

After that, it had been a lot of working trying to shore up my form more, working on parries and basic feints, refining what I had picked up so far and in the process picking up what I hadn’t before. Surprise, surprise, some tool whacking a tree in the middle of the night wasn’t the best source of training to learn how to kill monsters.

A year of sparring and refining myself with Chirons help later, and here I was.

“Seems like someones still a little gutsy, eh?!” Chiron bellowed as he knocked away my thrust. I had extended past Mors shield to attack his chest. A fruitless effort as he batted me away with his halberd. He whirled it with a flourish and swung the head down from the side. I positioned the shield between it and me so the axe put the brunt of the impact on the heater shield between me and it.

The top of the blade scraped off the shield as he reeled it back in to thrust. I took that as the signal to move in again, trying to put him on the defensive. I arced the blade of Mors from low guard, causing him to change plans and rotating the staff of the halberd to stop the cut. I kept up the attack, rapid fire cutting from high to low, advancing and then low to high again, high-low, high-low, it was easy parrying for him until, high-low-low. A cut to his stomach, when I had gotten him comfortable taking the blows.

“You bet!” I answered as a retort to his challenge earlier. He grunted, unhappy with the gut check, and snapped his leg forward to kick me in the leg backwards to give him some space, causing me to stumble as I took it squarely to the center of the shield, as he expected. He moved in from there, swinging from low to what I thought was an attempt to knock my feet out from under me while I was unsteady, and when I jumped forward and was met with a fierce kick to the stomach with his back leg as he followed up, I swore as I rolled back on the mat.

As I tried to get up, he moved in, whirling the halberd in circular motions to attack me from both sides, forcing me to move backward as he advanced. Losing ground, I rushed forward in a desperate attempt to gain forward movement again. I swiped from the underside, and was met with a block not by his weapon, but by a rocky piece of forearm to absorb the blow. Hefting the massive spear-axe in one hand he lunged forward trying to spear me directly as my own sword slid off his hardened arm, and my shield not positioned to protect me as I recovered from the unexpected block. I leapt to the left to get out of the way, shield out of place but still positioned enough to glance the blow as Chiron swiped out from the left to try and catch some part of me uncovered.

Knowing the other arm wouldn’t be covered so soon after he had applied Rockskin, I lunged forward to clip his side and get out of the corner of the mat I had been forced into, moving past him into the center of the ring.

I felt my mind burn with anxiety as we both were reset back to our neutral positions with the distance the cut had made. The threat of losing and the burn of the self loathing that usually followed made me bounce on my toes. It was getting close to the registration date for Beacon, and I wanted to come away with a win. My knuckles gripped white on Crocea Mors as I kept the shield in front of me and transitioned my hand to high guard. 

My fingertips felt slick outside the gloves I had used to keep from getting calluses on my palms. I squinted an eye as sweat ran down one eye to my chin, falling onto the mat.

“Not bad, not bad.” Chiron nodded. He gripped the handle of the halberd and lowered the head of the blade into a fool's guard, ready to bring it up to meet anything I brought from on high. I could see him huffing as hard as I was, and I could see his forehead was slick with sweat as well.

I sprinted forward dropping into Mors low guard. I could see a smile glinting his face but I was so close. Closer than I ever had been. I just needed to land the hit and-

“But not good enough.” He hummed. He grabbed the sword mid arc, and my heart jumped. He had rockskinned his palms when I had cut past him.

I tried to disengage the attack, but his grip on the sword was iron. He moved forward, thrusting the spear-end to match my momentum as I had tried to move backwards. As I brought up the shield to intercept, I realized my unfortunate position. I was scissored between his grip on my weapon and the halberd bearing down. He smiled, and as I tried to back out, he brought up his leg and positioned his foot squarely in front of my stomach, and fired out hitting me like a punch to the gut, which wasn’t completely accurate because it was a kick instead.

I launched backwards, slamming onto the mat. He tossed the sword onto the mat next to me, as I heard the buzzer on the scoreboard beep as he pressed button from the remote on his belt. I glanced at it from my position on the floor. I had at least gotten him further into the yellow on his aura, almost like it was about to sink into the red. 

Not as close as I had thought.There was a click, and the standing vanished.

“We’ve talked about this. You get predictable once you start trying too hard to end the fight. You gotta be more patient. You can’t always rush in aggressively.” Chiron coached, walking to where I was. “Especially when your hardware’s about a hundred years out of date.”

“Yeah, probably.” I rolled onto my aching side and crouched to stand.

“Yeah. Probably.” He reached down and placed a hand on my shoulder, it rising with me. “And you opened yourself up too much trying to get a clean blow. You were lucky I didn’t want to skewer you down the middle. Still, not bad.”

“Yep. Right.” I swiped my sword up from the mat. I was trying to stay as neutral as I can, but the anger from the loss burned me inside. Not at Chiron for beating me, but for my own lack of self awareness to recognize what I had been doing. For not being strong enough to finish the fight or smart enough to realize I had set myself in a rut in my anxiety.

A terrible loss. And I was still trying to be some “better” Jaune.

Chiron walked over to the bench and picked up an aluminum water bottle, taking a swig from the top. I couldn’t tell if he could see the anger bleeding through, and just was choosing not to say anything, or if he didn’t notice anything.

“Get some water, Jaune?” He called back.

“Nah.” I yelled back. I went over to a dummy and began practicing my point control on my swings. Swiping to make sure I hit the edge of the blade on the dummy and didn’t go flat against it.

The registration for Beacon was in a week. There would be people lining up at the local academy to apply, and I’d of course be there with fake transcripts. I was prepared to roll with canon on this one, I had made them about a year back and kept them on hand. I didn’t exactly know how to “fake” a transcript, but luckily the internet was a big place, and I felt like I hadn’t done a terrible job about lying about myself.

But a different idea had occurred to me. A more riskier one. There was a practical applications test for people who hadn’t been to any lower academy, but had experience fighting Grimm or with Aura before. A practical combat test.  
The details were sparse, but usually a Grimm like an Ursa or Boarbatusk was brought into an arena monitored by proctors, and killing it would constitute an application in lieu of transcripts. If they failed or it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to kill it, the proctors would step in and finish the job, and it was an automatic rejection.

I didn’t want to get in the way the real Jaune did. I mean sure, I understood faked transcripts were the way he went the first time, and that it was the highest chance of working, but something twisted inside of me when I thought about it. Like even just complying with the canon in that was some approval of my worst fears about my ability. 

As I slashed at the immobile target, I sank further into thought. If today's training session was an indicator of anything, I wouldn’t do well on the practical either. An Ursa wouldn’t be so forgiving, or offer some helpful hints if I made a mistake, and the proctors would be nice, but they’d still mark “failed” on the sheet. Beacon was the best of the best too. Even if I passed the practical why would they bother with someone who wasn’t in the top performances, like Ruby, Pyyrha, or any of the others would be. I would be setting myself up to get rejected. I didn’t have a special weapon, aura, or a semblance. I would have the training I’d gotten with Chiron, which was great, sure, but it was just me, and even back home, in another life, had I ever been skilled enough on my own? With no one to support me?

And if I didn’t make it into Beacon? How many people would die because even if I didn’t know the in’s and out’s of RWBY’s story, I knew enough that could potentially save lives? Or would die via butterfly effect once Jaune wasn’t there? I couldn’t exactly explain to other people the situation that was going on, especially with no evidence to believe other than the promise of destruction. I was on my own in trying to stop this until I was in a place where I could believe otherwise, and once again, when had I ever been good enough on my own?

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I stopped from slashing the dummy, and looked up to the face of my mentor, stern, but much softer than I had originally thought, especially for me to leech off his time.

“I think we’re gonna wrap it up for tonight.”

“What?” I hissed. “The registration’s in a week, I can’t just-.” I glanced at the clock. “And it’s only 11:30! I can go one more time!”

“It’s also a school day tomorrow, and it’s getting close to finals week for you.” He ‘hmph’ed, in dismay. “Or did you think an old timer wouldn’t know? Even if you’re going to try for Beacon you need to focus on passing civvie classes first.”

“Why?” I groaned. “I was already going to fake my transcripts. And I’m doing good enough already. I could bomb my finals and still graduate.”

“Because if you don’t make it into Beacon, you need a backup plan.” He retorted.

I didn’t respond to that. He didn’t think I was good enough to make it either then. It was fair enough.

Seeing my face fall, he tried to elaborate. “You’ve improved a lot. You’ve gotten a lot better against me, and I think you could make a grimm think twice before they start a fight. You’ve come a long way.”

But.

“But… the chances still… aren’t good.” He rubbed the back of his red ponytail, uncomfortable. “You're a hard worker, and I’d have loved to get you in my class when I was back at Flare. You got a real motor in you y’know? Driven. More than a lot of the kids I worked with. I just don’t know if that’ll be enough to guarantee you a spot.”

“It doesn’t matter if that might not be enough, it needs to be. I told you before, I need to be there, and-”

“People will die, yeah you’ve alluded to it vaguely before, and I’ll respect that tragic backstory, but kid there’s no shame in having a backup plan.”

The backup plan, ideally would then be to break in and explain to Goku-Dumbledore or whatever who the villains are and what their plan was as far as I knew. I wisely did not say that.

“You got the brains to be other stuff, a craftsman, a dustologist, a cop-”

“I’m not going to be a cop.” I stated firmly. Old-world politics leaking through.

“Okay, whatever, point is, no shame in a backup option.”

“Fine!” I bursted out. “I’m going to get in, but if I don’t I’ll need some backup or shit! I get it!” I huffed and sat back down. “Christ, thanks for the confidence booster.”

He looked at me solemnly. “Kid, I didn’t mean it like that. You’ve gotten better, and I think you could pass the practical with your skill now. But that’s the thing, it’s not just skill that gets you to the top, and it isn’t just skill that funds a school. There’ll be rich kids, geniuses, tournament winners, some trust fund brats who got in on a bribe. Also what’s “christ?” is that like a slang thing or-? 

“Yeahit’saslangthingdon’tworryaboutit. Anyway you said rich kids twice there.”

He furrowed an eyebrow before he seemingly just decided to roll with it and chuckled. “Nah, I’ve known some who’d fight tooth and nail to be worth more than just Daddy’s net worth. Usually the black sheep of the family.” 

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Point is, you got stiff competition, and the Practical ain’t worth as much as it used to.”

“Then I need to be good enough to be worth the attention. And I’m gonna need more training to meet that.” I stood up, hefting my gear.

“Kid-”

“If I don’t do it here, I’m just gonna go out and find some Grimm to throw myself at.”

“You aren’t stupid enough to do that.”

“I would beg to differ.”

He grunted and stood up. “Yeah, you’re stupid enough to do that.” He muttered a “stubborn ass” under his breath when he thought I couldn’t hear. I stifled a half-smile.

“We go short this time. You get knocked down and we’re done.”

“Gotcha.” I jogged back to my starting area.

As he trudged back across the gym he hefted up the practice halberd again. The scoreboard switched on again, and we both readied our stances.

“Any thoughts on what you wanna focus on next time?” he asked me. My gaze drifted to a glimmering bronze greatsword on the wall. A dream still yet undenied, but risking being discarded as I focused on Mors.

I mean. If he was offering me to pick...

“I want to work on using one of those.” I stated, pointing to the back wall where it was displayed . “I figure I got some of the basics of swordplay down so, you know, branch out a little.”

He turned his gaze to the back wall where the bronzed sword was. He shrugged.

“Sure thing.” His mouth curved up into a roguish grin. “But that’s a big sword for a little man. Better see if you're up to it.” He leapt forward, preparing to spear me as soon as I was in distance.

I sprinted to meet him. Had to dress for the job I wanted right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and criticism welcomed, I won't get better without it.


	7. Registration Day

“I’m leaving Ma!” I yelled from the doorway. I was halfway through the door already, but wanted to let Sepia know so I wouldn’t look suspicious. I unhooked the car keys of the family van off of the rack and shoved them in my pocket.

“Okay dear, stay safe!” I heard her yell from another room.

“Yep!”

I shut the door quickly, and hefted the backpack hidden behind the door over my shoulders, jogging down the stairwell.

I had told Jaunes parents I had wanted to meet with some friends a week before and hang out. This was something they were surprisingly happy about, and unfortunately very interested in.

There was a lot I had to make up on the fly about my new foreign friends “Robbie” and “Charles.” Transfer students from Atlas, the two met as the only Atlesians attending the school through the transfer program for Southern Vale High, and became fast friends with each other. We had been partners for a science project, and I had connected with the two over our love of comics. I actually had trouble coming up with a reason for why we had become friends, and the lie would have ended there if Jasmine hadn’t covered my back by insinuating I was able to bond with them over Jaunes old love of comic books.

I legitimately hadn’t known that was a character trait I was supposed to have. And lately with my priorities so split between regular school, learning to fight, and prepping for Beacon by researching stuff how to fake a transcript “accurately” so I wouldn’t get thrown out immediately, that afterwards I’d just gone to a professional website and paid some lien to get one. Once again, the perks of getting to know a setting or people purely through a rant video.

I hurried down the stairs, ignoring my neighbors while one pair vacuumed and another yelled from two stories up about them making noise. Wonderful people, really.

At the bottom of the stairwell, I gave one final look up to the top of the stairs to see if I was being waved off. There was no one.

Good.

I jogged over to the bushes in front of the complex, and stood on the small brick fence surrounding the complex’s patio, as I fished around in the concave part of the bush, feeling around for what I had stashed there this morning.

I felt it. Gripping the slick black plastic, I pulled the garbage bag with the weapon in it out of the bust, and hopped off the brick structure. I felt Crocea Mors sag down the bottom of the bag. I gripped the bag by the outline of the sheath, and hurried over to where the family van was parked, digging into my pocket as I ran, and pulling out the key.

I shoved the bag with the sword into the back seat and slid into the drivers side. It had been easy to sneak out with the family heirloom when everyone had been sleeping before, and just put it back when I was done, nobody really checked the blade for any wear or tear so most of the time I was just able to slip it back up on the mantle. Chiron had taught me how to sharpen and clean the antique but now I’d needed to plan out how exactly I was going to slip the sword/shield combo out while everyone was awake.

I tried thinking of some complex plan, but I couldn’t think of any realistic scenario, so I just opted for stashing it in the bushes, and using the angle of the window to make sure they couldn’t see it hidden in the foliage.

Of course the suspicion was on me, I had been caught before sneaking out with it, while and I had played dumb an audience that probably didn’t believe me, their support didn’t exactly matter at this point. It didn’t matter whether or not I was discovered. I was going to register, and if I got in, I was going. It didn’t matter if Jaunes parents didn’t want me to. It was a greater-good situation.

I pushed the doubt, and kicked the car into reverse, pulled out of the parking lot, and set my Scroll’s map to the lower academies they were holding the registration. I patted the bag in the passenger seat again, feeling the papers crumpling on top of the extra clothes I had stored under it.

The radio crackled in the background. “... And another Grimm sighting on 101 and Branchester, possible Beowolf and Ursa infestation, with investigators saying it could be the remains of a previous phase 1 evacuations have been scheduled, and hunters are on the scene. Please wait for further…” I switched the station. That was downtown. I remembered because I’d gone down there before to look at some weapons being displayed at a festival in the square. Of course I had to watch 5 other kids during it but I got a peek every now and then. Ignoring it, I switched it to some alternative station stuck on a commercial break between songs. Somebody else was going to have to “hero” that situation while I was getting the training wheels. I nodded my head with the beat as the next tune rolled on, vibing with the song, and sinking into the rhythm.

Oh yeah baby, it was all coming together.

* * *

I pulled into the parking lot, and circled around to find a space, settling on one on an empty space near the end of the lot. Far away enough from the doors where no one would see the second stage of the plan after I turned in Jaune’s transcripts.

I pushed through the doors of the preparatory school, and stepped into the common area, a plaza with several lunch tables sprinkled around the opening, with a principal's office off to the left side, and hallways leading deeper into the school on the right. I followed the signs through the common area to where registration was happening. I trailed past several hallways full of lockers, each one almost person sized, which figured. Some peoples weapons were probably pretty big, and a standard locker probably wouldn’t hold a battle axe. I passed a student trying to shove a tuba into the just-too-small space. It must’ve worked by having dust stored in the finger pieces that would fire out when he played specific notes. There was a guy who played the trumpet right? Probably worked the same way.

It slipped out of his fingers and let out a honk as it crashed into the floor. Its player swore as he picked it up and tried to fit it in over what I could see now was some kind of rifle. I guess he just played the tuba as a side gig. I didn’t think that these kinds of schools really had electives like that. When I thought “military academy” the rigid school structure comes to mind, but never the extracurriculars.

As he collected his tuba, and made the effort to shove it back into his locker with a grunt, I nodded unseen behind him. Right on tuba-man, live your best life.

I passed through an outside corridor into a gymnasium, shoving one of the double doors open.

It was about as big as your standard high school gymnasium. Green striping looped around the outside of the gym with some bleachers on the sides. Some flags for various junior tournaments were displayed across all four walls, listing different years that the school had been able to bring back a district victory. What was a large difference between your standard school gymnasium was the large ring set up around the middle of the gym, elevated higher from the gym floor like a boxing arena. In front of that, sat two...registrators? Manning the table. A clean shaven dude, well groomed man with black hair in a military cut and a gray vest, and a woman in purple hair with a side cut. A line of about 6-7 people stretched out ahead of them, and occasionally they would point someone to a set of doors they would go out with a stand next to it saying “Practical Exam.” I kinda figured there’d be more people here.

I trudged up to the line and unfurled the manilla envelope from my backpack. I could’ve just mailed them the transcripts in and got them evaluated much easier, but for why I was here, seeing what the interior of the lower primary combat schools looked like. For the most part, besides the veritable arena that was the gymnasium, and the two or so armories I thought I passed on the way here, it was pretty reminiscent of what a normal high school was like.

Eventually I made it to the front of the line. The woman with the purple hair and the side cut noticed me first, while Mr. Military Cut looked bored out of his mind.

“Hi! Are you all ready to go?” She asked me politely. She must’ve noticed me fiddling with the papers in line.

“Yeah. Yep. All ready to go.” I said, fidgeting nervously. My eyes flitted between her and the envelope as I handed it over.

“Okay, great! Lemme just take a look and make sure everything’s filled out…” She slipped open the fold and grabbed the papers inside. Which was fine, they were good transcripts. There was nothing wrong with them. They were good 60 dollar transcripts that I definitely thought were gonna be vetted here and not by someone else in a mailing office too bored to care and just put a stamp on and pass off.

She pursed her lips and scanned over the paper. Military Cut took attention, looking over her shoulder.

My nails pressed into my palms, and I tried to not look nervous. Should’ve done the mail. Should’ve done the mail. My sense of pride was an ass, and I should’ve just done the mail.

“President of the Chess club, huh?”

I swiveled to Military Cut. “Yeah, always enjoyed it as a kid. So, you know.  
Run the club behind it. Heh.” That was a fake laugh. It was too fake.

“Knight to e-five, ‘n all that.” I offered weakly. I liked chess. Was a fun game. Unfortunately wasn’t the president for a club behind it.

“Mmh. And it says your semblance is undiscovered?” Side Cut questioned, not looking up from the paper.

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to find it yet.” I said calming down a little. See? Didn’t have to lie yet. I mean I would get aura and a semblance eventually, just had to be in the right place and time. So technically it did count as undiscovered.

“So Flare Academy huh? Haven’t heard of that one.” Military quipped from the right.

Ah, back to the lies. “Yeah, it’s a, uh, small school. Kinda out in the boonies y’know?” Shit, was it? I should’ve read over the papers more after I printed them. “Not too big or anything.”

Military Cut was suddenly very interested in the conversation. He leaned on his palm and seemed like he was holding back a smile.

“Y’know I’ve never heard of it! Whooo~ who were your combat instructors?” He asked. “I mean me and Orchid both went to Shade before we transferred to Beacon, so we might’ve heard of them.”

The woman, now “Orchid” turned up from the paper. Both of their attentions were on me now.

“Chiron.” I uttered. “Chiron Lekythos...” He had been a teacher right? At the very least that wasn’t a complete lie considering his mentoring offer. I tried to think of a teacher-y name.

Military sat back, less amused than before. “Ol’ Ron huh? I think I had him as a sub a couple times, never had him as a full teacher before. Could’ve sworn he retired.”

He looked to his compatriot for some kind of support. She shrugged and went back to reviewing my credentials.

I didn’t give any response to that specific statement. “He taught me a lot. Didn’t hold back with the halberd either”, I retorted. “Can name more than a couple times I got sent flying, but I like to think I learned how to, eh, deal it back too.”

“He was a tough old coot, yeah…” Military murmured leaning back, not paying attention again now that I had satisfied him.

“Well, I think you have everything!” Orchid offered. She slid the papers back in the envelope, and put it in the tray with the rest of the applications.

“Great!” I nodded. “So.. I was wondering something. There’s, like, a practical exam too right? Like some kind of combat test? Where would that be exactly, since I came ahead of some family, so I want to know where to point them when they get there.” I explained.

“It would be out there.” Orchid pointed to a set of double doors on the right. “Down the hallway outside, but you shouldn’t have to worry since we got your papers right here!”

“Right. But y’know family ‘n a-”

“I mean you gotta take the entrance exam next, right?” Military wryly offered from across the table again. “I’d worry about that more.”

“I - you mean the practical application?” I asked, confused. I thought those were the same thing?

“Nope. The entrance exam. You can apply all you want, but the exam is gonna be what determines whether you stay or not. Beacon especially puts a lotta stock in theirs. Usually composed by the headmaster Ozpin himself.”

Orchid slapped him on the shoulder, and he sniggered “Stop scaring the applicants Vanta!”

He leaned back, and threw his hands up. “Just messing with him! If we’re gonna do this all day lemme have a little fun.”

“I mean, what’s it like? Is it like an actual test, or you fight a proctor or something?”

Military Cut, or Vanta now, shrugged. “It’s whatever he wants to do. Could be fighting a tourney between all the students or a test for all anyone knows. Beacon’s always pretty zany with it.” He waved down someone that looked like they were waiting for the discussion to finish. “Anyway. You’re good here right buddy?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m fine. And thanks for the help.”

I moved to the side away from the desk toward the doors that “Orchid” had mentioned, and pushed through them.

I saw a similar arena than what I guessed was now the “main” gym, but shorter off the ground. No bleachers inside like before, just hard rubber flooring and the ring in the middle.

I saw two fighters squaring up in the middle, preparing to go at each other. Down at the opposite ends of the rings were two short lines. Both had weapons out, and seemed to be eyeing their matching partner in the other line. A whistle blew, and in a flash the two combatants leapt at each other. One using a set of chakrams to slash at his opponent, while his opponent leapt at him in curving slices using his dual swords.  
I spotted what looked like a spare officiant over by the end of the ring, and jogged over.

“Is this the practical exam?”

He turned to face me. I didn’t take in much of him as I had trouble keeping my eyes off the bout currently in progress. They slashed at each other savagely, and I had to fight the urge to get in line as well. If this was what I thought it was, I might’ve just lost my chance at sating my pride on the practical.

“Yeah. Are you a participant?” he asked me.

“Maybe. I thought, you know, we were supposed to fight a smaller grimm as part of the test? Is that still available or?”

He laughed. “Nah kid, don’t worry, we haven’t used that method in a while.” He chuckled. “Way too many lawsuits. Nowadays, we just have a spar between two contestants, and the recording is sent to the academies.”

“Oh.” I stated inattentively. I followed the fighters as they dipped and dodged. Mr. Chakrams made the mistake of throwing the disc blade, and Dual Swords swatted it away and used that to rush toward him. It was fast fighting, but since I’d worked with Chiron and seen the videos of actual huntsman, it wasn’t hard to follow. Chakrams was forced on the defensive, trying to fend him off while his other weapon laid on the other end of the arena. He kicked off the wall and over his opponent as he made a mad dash for the other end where he had unwisely thrown the other half of his bladed set.

I gripped Crocea Mors at my side. I could take these guys. I should be able to, at least. I had fought an instructor and former hunter directly for a year now, and while I hadn’t won in most spars where he hadn’t wanted to allow a strike to help me learn a technique better, I’d been able to keep my own for a while against him when he wasn’t offering me those chances either.

The fight continued. Once Chakrams dashed to get his weapon, dual swords folded his blades together, and twisted from one of the hilts, turning it into a rifle. He fired two shots into the back of his opponent, and Chakrams gasped in pain, before rolling over and grabbing the other disc. His aura blocked the impact of the bullets from penetrating or doing serious damage, but it would still be sore tomorrow.

Chakrams pressed a button, and the chakrams began to rotate, making the same sound as a buzzsaw. He held them out in front as Dual Swords took two more shots, and ricocheted off the spinning blades. He was hurt obviously, and he knew it. His previous blunder had left him with two direct shots to the back that must’ve depleted his aura. He rushed his opponent, using the spinning saw-blades as a shield, taking by surprise a barely ready Dual Swords, still trying to unfold his swords from the long range mode.

I did not think about Crocea Mors bitterly.

He blocked hurriedly as Chakrams continued his desperate assault, the saws shearing off of the swords as he tried to get some kind of ground. One strike purchased his shoulder, and Dual Swords yelped. He kicked Chakrams back, trying to get some space. Chakrams grunted and was forced back a step. Dual Swords rushed in to end it. Angling one blade over the opponent, and hesitantly holding one back. Chakrams took the bait, opting to scissor the one blade with the saws, but not checking the other. Dual Swords moved past his opponent, hooking the other blade behind one of his feet, and spun off, flipping him into the mat of the arena.

There was a whistle, and a thumbs up from an officiant off to the side of the arena. He presented the results, Dual Swords in the yellow while Chakrams had been put into the red. Dual Swords strode over and helped Chakrams up, and they both left the stage, albeit in much different spirits.

Damn it, they were measuring the fights using aura left, because why wouldn’t you in an application to be a hunter? I sighed, frustrated.

“So did you wanna get in line?” The proctor asked me from the side, noticing that the match had ended. “We’d just need to link your aura to your phone if you haven’t already and-”

My fingers dug into my palm. “Nah.” I answered steadily. “Just checking. Thanks for the help.”

“No problem.” He said, and turned back around to the next set of contenders as they entered the stage.

I stalked out of the arena. Well that was a bust. All that planning, hiding Mors in the bushes for today, rolling with the suspicion, training with Chiron, all to actually try to legitimately get into Beacon without relying on faked transcripts like a fucking weakling.

And I had no one to blame but myself. It wasn’t the testing organization's fault I had gone purely on Chiron’s word, the person who had been out of the game for who knows how long when he promised me the chance for the now outdated Practical method. I should have checked. My thoughts impounded themselves further and further as I stalked through the halls.

I walked back through the halls as my anger turned inward at my own naivete in not checking further. Sure I had gone on the administration’s website and checked the website, but that was just to see if there really was a practical. I’d skimmed through it, not really reading the details. It was my own fucking fault. And now I’d be relying purely on faked papers bought online, from who knows where as my only option into the school. I still had the same chance I did beforehand, and there was no guarantee I would have passed the practical, but it would have been honest and it would’ve been mine. Failure or not.

I brushed someone’s shoulder as I passed around a corner, not paying attention. I muttered a “Sorry” and kept walking, only really noting the green woven shirt I had bumped into. I stalked past, to the doors, only for them to be blown open as a girl in a pink jacket called in a shrill voice after presumably the person I had just bumped into.

I ignored them and shouldered open the door back into the parking lot, deep in thought. I still needed to prove myself now, and from what Military Cut had said, it seemed like the only way to do that was through the entrance exam now. I racked my brain for details on what it was, trying to remember the details. Season 1 began with a forest right? And wasn’t everyone just tossed in there or something? That would need to be where I proved myself. Just dodge past everyone and bum rush to the finish line at the end, or however the test ended.

Part of me wanted to go back in and try anyway. I’d get kicked out since I obviously wouldn’t have any aura, and my transcripts would almost definitely get removed from the pool since they were right next door, but at least I’d be able to say I tried.

I gritted harder and kept walking forward. I knew I couldn’t do that. Lives were still on the line and I was relying on canon to do the legwork for me now. What a badass. What an OP Self Insert who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to make himself an unbeatable protagonist. Goku would’ve been jealous.

I shut the doors of the van, and tossed Mors down under the seat. It would have to be the entrance exam then. I’d get my aura unlocked later, and someone would probably notice by then, but some part of this needed to be accomplished by myself.

I flipped on the radio, and searched for a station. “...And it looks like the stragglers from the pack have been rounded up and dealt with. Authorities are clearing people to move back onto the scene, and while people are grateful the problem was resolved quickly, there are concerns that hunters from the team on the scene did not report back afterwards, instead relying on a cursory check by law enforcement after a given period of time.” I wrinkled my eyebrow. That was weird. So two Hunters on the scene were killed? What did “not report back” mean in this case? “This compounds to a list of disappearances with similar small attacks, and we’d urge you to tune in tonight, with even more important news such as the tragic story of one kitten stuck in a tree, and it’s hope filled-” I switched the channel there back to the alternative station. It lost me at “kitten”. I focused my thoughts toward the future as I sank into the rhythm once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby's mad he doesn't get to prove that he isn't terrible. More at 11.
> 
> Comments and criticisms welcomed!


	8. Leaving Home: End of Prologue

I tabbed out of the video and opened up my email again, checking like I’d been doing for the past month now. At this point, the acceptance and rejection emails were being distributed to people, and now I just wished I could bite the bullet and get mine already. A part of me wanted to be assured that canon would do it’s thing and my faked credentials would be good enough, and another was consumed by the anxiety of what would happen if I didn’t. All the eggs in one basket, and I was hoping that Omelette was gonna be real tasty.

Manz screamed outside of my room as she wrestled her sister. Citrine had taken her brush, and she wasn’t just going to let it go without a fight. Couldn’t fathom why Citrine had thought that was a good idea, she knew Manz was a biter. I could hear Jasmine yelling that if she saw marks on Citrine she was grounding her as the highest authority in the house with “Mom” and “Dad” out of the house. I heard Citrine yelp and the brush hit the ground, with the slapping of Manzs footsteps running past my room mixing with Jasmine angrily getting up to go after her. A thumping noise rang up from the floor as our neighbors angrily protested the noise by taking a broom handle to the ceiling. I got up from the bed, and shut the door, drowning out at least some of the noise.

It was the middle of summer vacation, and with school out, Jaune’s younger sisters were going stir crazy until they could get out of the house later in the day. Similarly, I had graduated civilian schooling. The last months of school had been preparing everyone my age for adult life, simulating what getting an apartment would be like, a brief look at what your taxes would look in life without actually going into how to do them, making meetings with college counselors to talk about schools or jobs, that kind of thing, and then graduation. The ceremony had been nice and Jaune’s parents had attended, but other than that it had been pretty much been a bunch of fluff as my class had graduated. A lot of smiles, and a lot of cheering- me included in the moment- as we all moved on to the next phase of life, and for me, a more important chapter of a larger story.

Since I had registered for Beacon on that weekend, every day since then had gone at a frustratingly slow pace. At home I had gone into the routine of finishing up any homework I didn’t do at school during my free period, frantically checking my email to see if I got the acceptance, and then trying to pass the rest of the day until I snuck out to work with Chiron. Usually by queuing a video about current news, and some sort of tournament fight and switching between watching the two with whatever had my interest the most. If there was too much nervous energy I went out for a jog. It was all just passing time until there was the next chance for self improvement. 

I noticed a dusty box of comics peeking out from their box under the bed, and pushed them back under, before settling on the bed. It’d stayed there for years now, untouched, and they could stay some more. Anything that didn’t feel like it was contributing toward Beacon and being a Hunter just felt like wasted time. It was dust in the wind.

Well that wasn’t really accurate. Dust was useful in Remnant. A power source if refined, a weapon when raw, different uses for different kinds. It could freeze shit, electrify shit, project hard-light shit, and reverse gravity if I understood it correctly. Some wild shit, and kinda counterintuitive to the spirit of the simile in this setting. 

Maybe ashes would be more appropriate.

I switched to my first tab holding a tournament video. I tried to stick with watching fighters using the ‘sword and shield’ combo but, finding fighters purely using only that combination was difficult. Most competitors had other tricks up their sleeve than just fancy bladework and human ability. 

I watched that for a bit, and tried to see how they moved before clicking on the second tab. It was talking about the rising tensions with the Faunus protests, though that was a common talking point in the media these days. It was big, stemming from the discovery that the Vale council had approved work camps and warehouses manned by the Schnee Dust Company within the kingdom’s borders, with conditions that had been revealed to be almost inhuman. Contracts that put their workers in debt for thousands to the company for housing and care on the site, wages too low to live off of unless you were working 24/7, and predatory overseers using employees like they were living batteries for the company's purposes. There had been more fuel to the fire in the following months with peaceful protests funneled into angry shouts for revolution as law enforcement seemingly had no qualms putting down disrupting a peaceful vigil, and silencing peaceful calls for change. Vale wasn’t as “bad” as Atlas, but it had a status quo to maintain all the same.

My mind turned toward the White Fang again. If this was a Faunus treatment issue, what was their involvement? They weren’t really active in Vale, and most stories came from them organizing terrorist attacks on the SDC and their property, and conflict in Vale. There had been some bombings a while back around Atlas that reports said they took credit for, but that didn’t really clear up the timeline.

Did Jaune’s team ever fight them? I know that was mainly Team RWBY’s schtick, but did they get involved as a side thing? I mean Blake was the only one involved emotionally with that but did Jaune’s team ever stop like a White Fang robbery or something? 

I tabbed out and checked the email again, refreshing the page. It was pointless thinking about this. 

Scrolling down, I checked-marked the ads on the page to get rid of them, and kept going until I hit the new emails.

There was one from a source labelled “Beacon Academy.”

My eyes widened, and I clicked frantically to open it and get my response. To know whether I was damned or not.

“Dear Mr. Jaune Luna Arc…”

* * *

  
“Are you sure?” asked Chiron, brow furrowed as he processed what I had said. He looked conflicted, arms folded over in legs as his halberd, Achilleids, laid across his lap.

Sweat trickled down my forehead and I caught my breath, the result from our latest bout. I had kept match with him throughout, but he always seemed to have an endless amount of stamina, ready to counter me at every avenue.

“Yeah, you said it yourself, practical wasn’t worth much nowadays.” I rolled the tension out my shoulders, and tried to roll the bitterness that had spiked from the thought lurking behind it out with it. “Guess I made the cut somehow?”

“Yeah sorry about that again, kid. I knew they had changed it, but I didn’t think they were so... namby-pamby about it nowadays. When I was your age, ya either got gored by a small Grimm or ya didn’t get in. What’s next, they're gonna stop sending students on missions?!” He said gruffly. He stood up, and Achilleids clattered to the ground as he went on a tirade, leaving a dent in the floor where the bladed head landed. “Can’t test if someones got cajones just by having them fight another person! Ya gotta have the odds stacked against them! Build character! Show some grit!”

I stared accusingly, then shrugged. Fair enough.

He waved his hand. “No offense. You did get those beowulf pups though, so I’d count them.”

“They still have the entrance exams.” I offered.

“Eh, maybe.” He sighed. “But it still just isn’t the same. By then, they’re already admitted. There’s just no grit to it!” He huffed and shook his head disapprovingly.

“So… any idea what Beacon’s is going to look like?” I pried. “I know they’re all random based on what the headmaster wants to do, but is there like a consistent theme or something?”

“Not really.” Chiron drawled. “Could dump you in the forest and have you survive a couple days one year and have all the students take literary test the next. All depends on the Headmaster, and Ozpin…” He exhaled deeply through his nose.

“Crafty son of a bitch, that one. No telling what’s going on in there.” He tapped his head.

“Hm.” I sat in thought. “I’ve got a feeling the forest thing might be pretty close.”

He shrugged. “No telling, really.”

“I leave in a couple days. 4 or 5? Initiations on Monday, so I’ll need to leave Saturday.”

“You really plan on going then? On trying to attend?” he asked.

“Have to.”

“Without…?” He trailed off. We’d had this conversation many times before.

“Yeah, without any of that.”

“Dunno how long you’ll be there before someone sniffs you out. 1st sparring match and some kid whips out an axe and doesn’t hold back.” He sideeyed me. “Gonna be a lotta blood.”

“I’ll be fine. I… got a plan.” I bluffed. “Stay ranged and all that. “Still kept up on working on my aim when I could sneak away on the weekends. “Got a handgun and some ammo to bring.”

He was unconvinced. “The people there are gonna have more than a pistol kid.” It was an understatement. They’d have sniper rifles that could turn into scythes, shotgun gauntlets, Uzi-sword things, and whatever the fuck Weiss had going on with the rapier. 

No really, what the hell did that thing do as a ranged option? Was it just the magic glyphs or did she fire dust or something?

“It’s the best I got right now.” I stated, and defensively slid Crocea Mors in and out of the shield/scabbard.

“Hrn. You having your parents take you down to the airport?”

“Yep.” I tensed as I said the lie.

“Your friends know yet? Gotta get some time in with them before you go.”

“Heh. Yeah, definitely.” I switched my focus to a certain spot on the gym mat that was suddenly very interesting.

“So, uh. In the, y’know, impossible case you come back.” He rubbed the back of his head. “What colleges are you looking at? Civilian-wise, I mean.” I could tell he was trying to protect my feelings, by not saying the thought directly.

“Y’know I’ve been taking a look at Beacon Academy. Nice campus. Great school overall.” I said sarcastically. “I’m not coming back. I’ll find a way to stay there.” I stated firmly.

“Kid, be realistic. You’re a hell of a fighter, but that's just not enough, and I know you’re smart enough to understand that. This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about this, I just figured you’d understand by now.”

“Then why help me at all?!” I burst out. “Why do any of this then? Why humor me for this long?!”

“I owed you for saving Slate.” he said firmly. “She’s alive because you intervened, and you could’ve gotten yourself killed. It was the least I could do for you.” 

He backed off, clearing his throat. “… And if you want a job, I could use the help with the front desk, help you with the college fund a bit. I’m just asking you to be realistic about what’ll happen once you get there.”

I sat back, incensed by his offer to “help me”. I knew that. I knew I still wasn’t good enough, and I might never be. I didn’t need him to tell me that.I was a dispshit with a sword, but I was supposed to be the better dipshit. 

The arrogance of the statement bit into my wrists, and I suddenly wanted to do anything else.

I got up, and drew Mors again. “Let’s go one more. I want some good rounds in before I pack up.”

He resigned, and leaned Achilleids against the wall, swapping it out for a training sword on the ground, not before flipping it over in his hands a couple times, testing the balance. “Sure, kid. Sure.”

  
We finished for the night, and I grabbed the sports bag I could stuff Mors into to keep it out of sight. A sword was noticeable, and if anyone my family knew was out at night, I wouldn’t’ve wanted them to see. I paced through the lobby, leaving Chiron to lock up as always. We’d talked more. This would be our last night working together until I left. For now I’d just be focused on packing up everything and getting ready to leave. He’d even had the kindness to lend me some spare protective plates for the academy. They were a bit loose, but a little tightening and they fit fine now.

“Kid?” 

I stopped halfway out the door. The bell clanged as the door hung open.

Chiron stood into the hallway, behind him the gym’s lights flickered as he flipped a switch and sent it into darkness. “...Good luck out there.”

I nodded my head, and slipped out the doorway, into the night.  


* * *

A small fan whirred from the far bookshelf. I had never been able to sleep without one, back home. When I was young I’d always had an A/C in my room that had made noise, and everytime it had gone out, I always froze in shock, like some unseen ghost had pulled the plug on the power. When I was older, I just transitioned to a fan to provide that same experience. Here, I had just asked for a fan as a christmas present. It had been a nice change of pace, since I never really asked for anything from Jaune’s parents. I hated feeling like a parasite, and once I had access to my bank account info, I usually just waited until they weren’t home and walked to a store nearby to get what I needed. They had seemed happy that I had actually asked for something from them, I didn’t totally understand why, even though I could figure it was some measure of “vulnerability”. I figured any parent would appreciate a low-maintenance kid, especially in a family of six.

My phone buzzed from under the pillow.

The pillow vibrated as I searched under it, digging the phone out from a sagging fold in the cloth, and switched on the phone. The screen illuminated the night with the text from the Hitchhike. It was midnight, and my ride was here.

I kicked off the covers on the bed, revealing myself fully dressed, barring the white sweatshirt hung on the door. Swinging my legs off the bed, I grabbed under the dark cavern of the bed, and felt my fingers brush the strap of my bag. I slid it out and checked back through it again, but not before I texted the driver outside I’d be outside soon.

It was packed to the point of almost stuffing. A couple sets of clothing, spare toothbrush, toothpaste, spiral notebooks, pencils, pen, my laptop crammed into the back pocket and with charger, soaps...

I counted off what I had, packaged mostly on the first night off from Chiron, and then sparingly after. I wasn’t bringing a lot, mainly just essentials, clothes, toothpaste, soap, some body armor Chiron had convinced me to bring with me. I had to make sure I had one thing, and it was the one thing I wouldn’t be able to get away with squirreling away with the rest of my stuff ahead of time. Luckily though, it was a heist that I’d performed many nights before.

I looked at my walls. A few pictures here and there, mainly family photos, but not much lining the light green wall. It was overall pretty minimalist. There weren’t any posters or pictures of media like the Silver Arrow or anything, nothing giving away interests or fandoms… it was drab, to speak bluntly. But that just made it easier to leave, easier to cut ties.

I brought the bag over my shoulder, leaving the mass of items hanging off my back. I grabbed my phone off the bed, and slipped it in my pants pocket, after asking him to give me five minutes. I crept toward the door, and cracked it open.

It was midnight, and of course the hallway was quiet. I had some kind of dread freezing my chest. Sure would’ve been cinematically powerful if I had to meet my family on my way out. Find out that they’d known what I’d been doing the entire time, and get in some kind of confrontation as I just try to grab Crocea Mors and leave. 

My jaw set itself. That was why it was important to get out fast. Get it and go.

I power-walked down the hallway, not really caring about the telltale steps I left as I made my stride. Sound doesn’t matter. I was leaving. Just get it and go.

I traversed the carpet in the main area over to the family room, glancing at the front door as I passed it. Striding up to the mantle, I fingered behind the scabbard holding Crocea Mors, unhooking the clips fastening to the wall swiftly as my hands traced over the clamps. I’d dropped it before, and gotten grounded when the noise had woken the family, but I wasn’t an amateur in performing the process anymore. In seconds, the blade was unfastened, and I curled it under my arm, turning to the door. In my paranoia, I could swear I heard a door opening. Just get the fucking thing and go.

I took a jogging step in the doors front direction, before landing the ball of my foot changing back to power walking again. I was fine, I had time. Just go.

I stepped back into the main room, and froze in front of the door, almost waiting to see if anyone was alerted to my leaving. No doors opening, no feet thumping out of bed to find the noise. I turned back to the door, and carefully undid the latch, hiking the sword further into my armpit so it wouldn’t slide down. 

Latch undone, I twisted the knob on the door, and stepped outside into the night air. It was a cloudy night, from what I could see on the balcony. The overcast sky covered any traces of the moon and natural horizon. I couldn’t see the stars, but I could smell the humidity and the rain that would come tonight.

I took a sparing look over my shoulder. Was it my imagination, or had a bed creaked? Had I gotten away with this?

I stepped outside and shut the door, and it clicked peacefully shut behind me. I could see the headlights of my driver in the parking lot below.

I descended the steps. I had gotten out without any problems. No confrontations, no emotional goodbyes.

I gripped the railing a little tighter than I should’ve. No one had noticed, and no one could care. Which was great, I rationalized. By the time they realized I was gone, there wouldn’t be anything they could do. I’d leave a message saying I’d gotten accepted to Beacon, and was going, but after that, I’d block them on my scroll. If they texted or called, I’d want to respond, and I still didn’t know what explanation I could give that could justify all this. I’d leave them a message saying what I was doing, let them know Jaune would be okay, and leave it at that. At the very least they keep living their lives without worrying about me- 

Him, I corrected. Always him. Don’t covet what was never yours.

-until I got killed by Cinder, or Salem or Torchwick or whoever. Then, I mean, I’d be dead. So I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. It would be a heroes death or something stupid like that though so it’d be fine, and everyone loves those so it’d all be fine. 

I slid into the passenger seat of the vehicle. It was a black sedan that looked like it would be more useful to a soccer mom, though I guess that was what made it useful to a transport service. Both had to drive people around.

“Airport right?” I heard the driver call from the front seat.

“Yep.” I answered, handing up the bills for the ride. It should’ve been enough.

“Alrighty. Settle in and enjoy the ride.”

“Mhm.” I typed in the message to Jaune’s family, and as the car pulled away from the apartment, and I stared down the ghostly outside of the apartment building I’d lived in for as long as I’d been in Remnant, a certain song came on the radio, that I couldn’t muttering a line along with.  
  
“This is the day you were waiting for.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's canon time bitches.
> 
> Comments and criticisms welcomed.


	9. The Arrival

The Bullhead’s interior hummed as it floated over the city. The plexiglass window stretching across the common room offered a beautiful view of Vale’s capital city. The “college town” to Beacon? We couldn’t have been far from the school now. I folded my arms and scanned across the interior from my corner of the room.

Was I in “main character” territory yet?

Well, that was difficult to tell.

When you watch an animated show or look at a drawing, you never really figure how an illustrated picture translates directly into real life. How the different lines and curves, however realistic they might be, differ from the complexity of a real human face. In some ways, all art uses a bit of suspension of disbelief to make you believe a drawing of a man is a man, a sketch of an apple is an apple, and an etching of a chair is a chair. There are common details, enough to identify a picture of something, and engage that suspension, even if there isn’t a 100 percent match. Depending on the artstyle, certain anime could skip a lot of identifying details for the sake of aesthetic, which could also sometimes lead to same-face syndrome depending on how much the artists cared.

So in short, telling what someone actually looked like from an rwby’s kind of caricatures was really fucking difficult sometimes.

I moved across the hold, trying not to linger on any one person, just a quick glance and a step forward. The common area was pretty full of potential students, the air buzzing with noise as everyone seemed to be contemplating their future classes, the teachers, and their surprise at being accepted, as well as the mystery of what the entry exam could be.

I raised my eyebrow. Was the ship this packed in the original?I imagined all those turned eyes as he puked into a trash can, and inwardly cringed at the secondhand embarrassment. My stomach felt queasy too, but it was more anxiety than airsickness, and even if it was I definitely wasn’t going to make an ass of myself up here.

I reached the end of the room, a trashcan next to the door leaving into the seating arrangements we had been packed into as the aircraft took off, and released as our flight stabilized. My gaze drifted to the window, drifting between the people watching and the slight view of the city I could get from the back of the room, and just so happened to drift across a blond mane with a tan leather combat skirt, and a short red bob with what looked like a red hoodie packed into a black dress. Golden gauntlets rounded the blondes tanned wrists, a red bar hung off the back of the dress of the pale redhead, looking like some kind of folded up nerf gun to someone who didn’t know better. Yang and Ruby. Both seemingly deep in conversation.

I averted my eyes back to the city. Curiosity sated, I backpedaled and turned around. That was “main character territory”, and I didn’t feel like I had any right introducing myself earlier than canon, which if my brain could remember the details, was sometime after landing. My mind buzzed a little with the excitement before I focused down on myself. Don’t be an ass, you’re here to prove yourself, not schmooze up to the actual main characters. Though, if they were here, would that mean Blake or Weiss were too? I didn’t know if they all rode the same ship in, but I mean, it’d make sense if we were all on the same “bus” going in.

As I was walking back, I did one more cursory glance around me, and something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. A black bow sticking out against the dark grey of the hull of the back wall. What looked like a black coat around a white undershirt. Two scabbards splayed against the wall as she leant up against the wall reading a novel I couldn’t make out the title of, her stern brow furrowed as she was seemingly lost in what she was reading. It might not have been Blake, but the bow felt like it was the key detail there, and I hadn’t seen anyone else with one that looked similar.

Maybe those similarities weren’t any definitive proof without getting a name, but I hastened the walk past anyway. Just like real people, but more important than you. I moved back to the corner between the wall and the window, and leaned against it.

I hadn’t seen Weiss in the crowd. It’d make sense that she would have her own private transportation, and felt in character the “rich heiress” stereotype. I almost expected a jet to fly across the window at some point to prove me right.

I didn’t look out the window for the view so much I took a good look at myself for the first time for what felt like years.

The face looking at me was still Jaunes alright. An average looking blonde guy, with a face that seemed to hit all the definitions someone made in a character creator with all of the sliders completely untouched. Perfect NPC energy. Well, except for…  
I scratched under his blond bangs, where the ghost of a scar was barely covered. The memories of waking up in the hospital clueless and confused revisited me, but I didn’t dwell on them too long.

...I should make a good first impression right? I tried brushing my bangs to the left. I looked like I was balding and using a combover to fake it. I brushed them to the right. That long line with faint stitches stuck out without a hairline to cover it. I swept the bangs back in place. Shaggy mess it was.

The holograms on the back walls piqued my interest instead. Using mirrors always made me feel weird anyway. There was always a second or two when I hadn’t used one in a while where I needed to remember Jaune’s face and mine were in the same place. Weird kinda dysphoria.

I stepped towards the back wall to listen to one of the displays on the Vale News Network. The anchor had that fake polite smile anyone who has to do the daily news used, as she read off the teleprompter behind the camera. A familiar orange haired visage scowled from the portrait besides her in contrast, before it cut away as she transitioned to the next piece.

“...in other news, this Saturday’s civil rights protest turned violent when suspected members of the “White Fang”, an anarchist group known for their suspected terrorism in Atlas, provoked police, leading to them disrupting the protest-”

A couple images of burning trash cans. Some guy throwing something at a cop. People being shoved down the streets as law enforcement fought to shut down the rally. Then a more threatening picture, a Grimm in the city streets engaged with a group of hunters.

“...And with the rising Grimm presence on the city’s borders, and the rising crime rates amongst these once peaceful protests, many are wondering: Are these riots an insidious plot by the White Fang to draw the Grimm toward our cities? We’ll speak with Central Vale columnist Tweed Aragokra at eleven tonight, to hear his thoughts.”

As it went to commercial, I looked around. People were still busy talking to each other, the few who were watching with me awkwardly trying to go back to conversation now that the idea seeds of an insidious plot had taken root. But, out of the corner of my eye, I could swear I saw the possessor of one signature black bow scoff in disgust before she walked out of earshot.

The hologram faded, as a different picture took over the monitors. One Glynda Goodwitch, retired hunter, and Vice Headmistress of the esteemed Beacon Academy.

She spoke in a soft tone of voice, giving her welcoming spiel to the school. I tuned in to hear Yang’s voice from somewhere in the crowd, but spaced out again as everyone else’s murmuring increased while Goodwitch talked.

“...Our world is in a great time of peace, and it is your duty to uphold it.” She finished. “And you all have demonstrated the courage for just a task. And now, it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect the world.”

Yeah. Chosen. Sure. I rolled my shoulders back and sighed, before I joined everyone else as they crowded the windows trying to get a look at Beacon Academy, which had just crested over the horizon, faint waterfalls visible as spindles of blue against the cliffside.

* * *

I finally heaved my backpack over my shoulder, one of the last people to leave as everyone filed out. I had unzipped Crocea Mors, and wore it on my belt now, swinging lazily as I filed off of the Bullhead.

Beacon was an incredible sight, the spires of the towers rising from towers that seemed to stick out every which way from the entrance building. Various flags welcoming us into the school, and architecture for the gates that kind of reminded me of one of those roman aqueducts. It also looked a lot like what I imagined Disneyland castle would look like, except bigger.

Then again I couldn’t really make that call too accurately. Never had been to disneyland. Never would now, though I guess Beacon just about trumped the mental image.

I squinted a little as I searched the plaza the Bullhead’s landing strip had delivered us to. Was there supposed to be some kind of new-student line or something? Did we just go inside the big building or was there like an outdoor thing. Ms. Goodwitch might have said something, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention. Did we have dorms we were supposed to go to? Did we even have dorms? Relevant questions, they felt like.

A large boom sounded off from behind me. I jumped forward, not expecting the sudden noise. From behind me, I saw a smoke cloud billowing out from a pile of suitcases, as what looked like some butlers carrying luggage staring in shock.

I ran towards the smoke. Had someone’s weapon gone off accidentally? Someone’s explosion semblance triggered? People might be hurt-

A voice erupted from the smoke.

“You. Idiot. That dust was from my own personal quarry! Do you know how much that amount cost?!” Weiss Schnee screamed. “It was Schnee quality! I’d make you pay for it if I didn’t already know it was out of your price range!”

Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, and the final checkmark on the list of spotted members of the titular Team RWBY, stood furious; covered in soot while what had to be Ruby stood behind an empty carrying case, using it as barrier between her and the angered socialite.

“Well I didn’t know that! Why are you carrying explosives in a suitcase?!”

“It was a secured carrying case, you absolute buffoon! Or at least it was until you broke the latch!” She stalked forward menacingly. “How could someone so incompetent make it through the application process to get here? Who would-”

It was at this point I interrupted. “Uh, ya’ll okay over here?” I asked, unsure what the proper etiquette was for this. “Anyone hurt or…”

“SHE!” Weiss pointed an accusing finger at Ruby. “Tampered with my luggage, and dropped a vial of Burn dust worth thousands.”

“I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to hand you your luggage and you lunged at me!” Ruby shot back. “I’m sorry I knocked over your bags, but how was I supposed to know they had dust in them?! I thought they were clothes or something!”

“As if I’d use lower stock.” Weiss sniffed. “A proper huntress requires quality resources! I can’t lower myself to Vale’s standard of quality.” Especially if they have no problems admitting someone of your... caliber.”

Ruby jumped forward. “Listen, princess-”

I stepped between the two. I wasn’t so worried about Ruby, but from just seeing her move forward, Weiss already had her hand on her weapon. “Ladies, can we please calm-”

“And it’s Heiress, actually.” corrected a voice from the side. “Weiss, Schnee. Heiress to the Schnee Family Dust Company, one of the largest distributors of Dust across the planet, and in the top richest families in Remants history?”

Dull yellow eyes gleaming, a ribbon tied into a bow over her black hair, and an amused expression, Blake strode forward.

Weiss beamed. “Correct! At least someone here understands-”

“...for which their company has been investigated countless times for interference in public elections, work camps almost benefitting solely from Faunus labor with little pay or compensation, labor law violations against Faunus workers and customers, and the complete monopolization of the dust trade by both legal and at best incredibly dubious means?” She smiled, handing off the vial to the heiress.

Weiss twitched. “Those,” she started slowly, snatching the vial from her fingertips. “have to do with my father. And I can’t speak for him on these...rumors. But I can say almost everything about what you’ve just accused my family of,” she spat “has been said countless times before by unreputable fake news and tabloids. I would check your sources. We’ve done nothing but try to run a legitimate company in Atlas.”

“Funny, I was referring to the current investigations in Vale.” She stared down Weiss, stone cold. “I could list all of the most current human rights violations by the SDC in Atlas if you’d like me to. It would be a while though.”

Weiss’s vision danced between each person present, tensed like she was about to retort, before she relaxed, deciding it wasn’t worth it. “Jaques! I’m going to be inside. Have the staff bring the rest of my luggage inside please!” She turned back to us. “I don’t need this.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, leaving a small cloud of soot as the ponytail flicked, and marched past.

Ruby called after Weiss apologetically. “I’ll make it up to you! Promise!” She turned to find Blake, before she crumpled down, dejected for some reason. I turned, and Blake was already walking back towards the Bullhead for whatever reason. Her bags maybe.

I turned to see her gather herself up, and notice I was still there. I tensed, before just considering walking away before she could say anything. She stuck her hand out, and I got a good look at her face.

Her face was cherubic, exuding positivity, in contrast to the darker reds and blacks she wore. Bright, excited, silver eyes. Black hair that delved into red on the ends, and some freckles that polka dotted her cherubic cheeks. The way she carried herself, it was a surprise she didn’t bounce everywhere, it’s how full of energy she seemed.

“My name’s Ruby Rose. It’s nice to meet you!” She announced, and her arm waved in the empty air as she waited for me to respond.

“Eh, names Jaune Arc. And likewise.” I took it, and shook firmly.

* * *

We had made some brief introductions before we both decided to try and find where we were supposed to go. Everyone had cleared out of the plaza by then, so there wasn’t any higher opinion to tell us where to go.

I studied the grounds. We were in a kind of garden now, off to the side of the entrance building. A fountain spurted water as we walked by.

She broke the ice first.

“So, Jaune. What… kinda weapon do you use?”

“Oh, uh. Hang on.” I unclipped Mors, drew the sword. Her eyes lit up immediately as she grabbed my hand suddenly, studying the blade in my grip, before drawing back, noticing my surprised expression.

She blushed. “Sorry. Weapons are kinda… my thing you know? But-” She looked at me in confusion, and at the untransformed shield. “That’s just a regular Crocea Mors isn’t it? I’ve seen a couple of them when we used to take field trips to the museum at Signal. They were really common during the Great Warsince they were cheap... is that just for display or something?”

“Uh, no. It’s not. Didn’t really have a lot of options when I left.” I stowed the sword. “His grandpa used it in the war. It’s… pretty shit honestly, but I’m making the best with what I’ve got. At the very least I got a sword and shield until I can upgrade or something. And hey, at least I can wear the stuff on my belt when I’m tired of carrying it.”

“...Won’t it weigh the same though?”

“Yeah.” I sighed.

There was an awkward silence as she must’ve been thinking of something polite to say.

“I mean, it’s great somebody having some appreciation for the classics!” She offered. “...But you weren’t able to make your own? At my old school everyone designed their own. Or had them professionally made, but that was kinda cheating.”

“No. I, eh, didn’t… have the time.” I said, hoping she’d take the curt answer. I followed up immediately to change the subject. “So what’s yours then?”

In one swift motion, she flipped the red folded metal bar out from behind her, and with a single click it unfolded. The staff shot out from the bottom while a deep red crescent blade unfolded with a smaller silver one outlined it. An ammo cartridge flipped to the outside, and as she swung it over her head, the massive blade split the earth as she sat the head down. I took a cautionary step back.

“I made it myself! Her name is Crescent Rose, and she’s a combination customizable high impact sniper rifle and v12-60 war-scythe! She uses the standard 5.45 X 39 mm cartridge, and-”

She launched into a massive tangent about the specs of the weapon, stopping really only to breath between paragraphs, and using terminology I mostly didn’t understand. I did get the gist though, it was a scythe that’s also a gun.

As she slowed down, I nodded stiffly. “That’s. Some incredible stuff.” I muttered.

“Yeah, Signal lets students design their weapons for their final year, so I was lucky I was able to graduate early to get to finish her!” She beamed. “Didn’t even need to use the bases the other students used either! She was sort of a… personal project, lets say.”

Damn. Definitely in that child prodigy category then, eh Chiron?

With another flip of the wrist, it collapsed back into the bar that she snapped back onto her dress.

“Yeah, Mors really beats that huh?” I offered sarcastically. “With the whole scabbard being a shield thing.”

She seemed embarrassed. “Eh, yeah.”

I heard the thumping sound of a P.A. system being tested. Ruby perked up at the sound as well. It sounded like it was from one of the side entrances.

“...I think that’s us?”

“Then let’s go!” She sprinted ahead toward the noise, and I followed suit.

* * *

She sprinted through the doors into the auditorium, and I trailed through a second after. She was short, but those little legs moved fast.

She froze at the end of the crowd, searching for someone. Eventually, she found her target. Yang was waving her hand above the crowd to catch Ruby’s attention.

“RUBES!”

“Yang!” she yelled excitedly, and in an explosion of what looked like red rose petals, disappeared into the swirling mass of people.

Leaving me alone at the edge of the crowd. I waded in a bit before settling for close enough to where I could hear. As Ms. Goodwitch finished the welcomes for the new students into the school, I did catch where we would get the sheets listing our locker combinations for the night. Did that mean they were temporary? I guess for the people who didn’t pass the entrance exam, sure.

As she finished speaking, a gentleman stepped on stage, and quiet murmurs drifted through the crowd. In a black jacket, and green scarf, the one and only Professor Ozpin, or “Anime Dumbledore” as I had referred to him jokingly really only in my own head. His eyes scanned over the crowd like an owl surveying the forest floor. I could’ve sworn they lingered in my direction a second longer than anyone else’s, but maybe that was me wanting to be special. He tapped the mic to get the crowd’s attention before speaking.

“I’ll...keep this brief. You have travelled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, purposeless and without direction. You assume knowledge will free you from this, but knowledge will only take you so far. It is up to you to take the first step.”  
He abruptly handed the mic back to Goodwitch, and left the stage in a rush. Guess he wasn’t a first impressions kinda guy.

Goodwitch concluded the ceremony. “You will all gather in the entrance hall tonight, and tomorrow your initiation will begin. The lockers will be available for the storage of gear considered valuable. Because of the…large number of applicants this year, the test will be different from most years. I would advise all of you to get some rest to be in your best conditions tomorrow.”

I looked around me. The hall was packed to the brim, yeah, but it had to be around the same amount as in canon right?

As she stepped off the stage, more murmurs spread as people dispersed into their own groups. I saw Ruby, Weiss and Yang off by the side. Weiss stalked off as soon as the speech ended, but Ruby waved at me, and I nodded her way before heading off to the lockers.

I should probably find Jaune’s team or something right? Or was it just going to be fate that I’d get assigned to their team? With Pyrrha, Penny, and… that asian guy with the pink highlights. Shit, what was his name again? Lee? Eh. I’d learn tomorrow. It was like a major canon event anyway right? Even if I gunned it alone I’d probably still get assigned to their team. I probably just needed to stay in their general vicinity, and I knew what they looked like enough.

I stowed my gear in one of the empty lockers and shut it, hefting my backpack now filled solely with clothes over my shoulder. It was getting late anyways. My ride to Central Vale had been an all nighter, and the flight to Beacon had taken up a lot of the afternoon. I looked at one of the windows leading outside. True enough, it was starting to get dusk-y.

After getting changed in one of the bathroom stalls, I headed outside to find a place to sleep for the night. Out of the corner of my eye, I swore I saw red hair and spartan-esque armor by near where I had stashed my stuff in my locker. Something to pay attention to, for sure.

I waded across the people already settled down to find my own spot. I was a bit relieved this had been going well so far. When I was packing after a session with Charon, I’d almost thrown in a pair of Jaune’s old feetie PJ’s in my exhausted state. Luckily I’d spotted them at the last minute, and know they sat comfortably in the drawer back home. Good. I dodged the vomit event and now embarrassing myself with my pajamas would be off the list as well. I threw on a black shirt and grey basketball shorts. White was Jaune’s color sure, but I could wear my own preferred scheme when I didn’t have someone else’s life to live.

I settled down in a corner where luckily no one else was, and came to the realization I hadn’t brought a sleeping bag. Smooth, buddy. I laid back and rested my head on my backpack, feeling through the clothes I crammed in the armor on the bottom. It was like resting my head on a pillow over a rock, but pillow was in that sentence so the process worked out really.

A nagging thought broke through, a silent burden I’d avoided thinking about all day. I flipped out my Scroll. Just from the lock screen, there were 5 missed calls, and texts from all of my sisters and my parents. Some wishing me luck, some angry, some worried.

I went down the list, blocking each number. I couldn’t think about them now, and I’d already let them know what I was doing. I was on the job now, and being too connected to anyone would just get in the way if or when I needed to enact le heroic sacrifice to stop the Fall or something. It was what seemed the most narratively correct for this kind of thing. My gaze drifted to where I saw Ruby and Weiss dishing it out again, this time with Yang taking her side, and what looked like Blake reading on the floor. I couldn’t get distracted with people who weren’t necessary.

I turned on my side. Meet Pyrrha or something tomorrow. Make sure she doesn’t hate me so she’s willing to commit a federal fucking crime after the test and unlock my aura, then work as hard as I could to stop the fall of Beacon.

Easy enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments greatly welcomed.


	10. Landing Strategy

Sleep was dreamless, and I fell in and out of waking as I rested uncomfortably on my makeshift pillow. The closest I came to dreaming was when I had timed my breathing with the snores closest to me. It wasn’t counting sheep, but it got the job done, and I got a few hours in before the morning broke.

The breakfast was nice. They had a breakfast buffet lined up for the students, and luckily enough I had woken up early enough to where the line wasn’t too long.  
Two pancakes, some eggs, and little bacon on the side. Classic breakfast combo right there. As I finished up breakfast, I saw Penny and the other one eating theirs. She was chattering in his ear, and he seemed like he was doing his best “that’s crazy man” to try and sate her ranting, though oddly it didn’t seem like he wasn’t enjoying the background noise. I’d leave them be for now. We’d meet up later or something.

I brushed my teeth and packed the gear I was using as a makeshift pillow in the entrance hall. The benefits of packing light meant there weren’t much other than the essentials. Before that, I did unpack the spare plates that Chiron had lent me, and began slipping them on, using the window as a mirror. It was mainly a set consisting of a chestpiece, some gauntlets, and some shin guards, and some thigh plates. It wasn’t full plate armor, but protection was protection. I slipped on some of the black combat boots I brought with me, and stowed the red converse with everything else. I looked at myself in the mirror. Blue and black was an alright color combo, and it was a nice contrast with Jaunes hair. Breaking the plot, one drip at a time.  
  
I went to the locker room next to get Crocea Mors. I remembered well enough which locker it was, but there was something I wasn’t expecting. Weiss, and one other particular figure of note deep in discussion. One Pyrrha Nikos.

“With your help during the exam, we would make an unbeatable team Ms. Nikos! Can you imagine?! The unbeatable combination of a Schnee’s intellect and the skill of the 4 time Mistral Tournament winner!” Weiss pitched as Pyrrha held her gear in front of my locker.

“...It sounds great, yeah…” Pyrrha nodded, though from what I could see it was more out of a sense of politeness than anything. “But I mean, who knows what will happen out there, you know? Fate’s unpredictable like that!” She laughed as her eyes darted to the exit.

Weiss was undeterred. “Oh that won’t be an issue. As long as we make an effort to find each other during the exam, it’ll be fine. From what I could tell from talking to people last night, it seems like a scavenger hunt of sorts, at least that's the best of what my people could get out of the staff.” Her brow furrowed. “But I don’t have any clue as to what the items would be. And Winchester would’ve been a fantastic third, but…”  
Her expression soured. “Nevermind him. For right now the two of us will work as a team until we can find more competent members-”

“Hey.”   
  
They both turned to face me, Weiss frustrated to be interrupted, and Pyrrha looking slightly relieved someone had stopped Weiss. She waved politely. “Hello!”

I nodded at her. “My stuff’s in there, could you move over a ‘lil, or…?”

“You! From the landing!” Weiss remarked, suddenly recognizing me. Her expression soured. “Is that buffoon here with you? Her and her sister were bothering me all night.”

I thought I had heard some angry whispering last night. “Dunno where she went, haven’t really talked to Ruby since yesterday at the plaza. To be honest you’d know more than me.”

She waved it off. “It doesn’t matter. Me and Miss Nikos here were simply discussing our future team, since we’d obviously be the alumni among freshman.” She turned around and muttered something else to herself that I didn’t catch. “I assume you’ve heard of her? 4 time tournament winner, perhaps?”

“I think I’ve seen a video or two.” I squinted a little trying to recall where I had seen her face in other places. “Coulda swore I saw you on a Pumpkin Pete’s cereal box?”

Pyrrha giggled. “That was from a healthy eating campaign my brand did with Pumpkin Pete’s. A much less popular piece of advertising I’ve done, I will say.”

“I think there was a sweatshirt reward my sister was obsessed with, for like, a month. Kept the original box for good luck ‘til it was over.” 

Weiss groaned. “Of course you would know her from a cereal box. Plebeians.” She muttered that last one under her breath, but her quiet seemed to be on a different volume to everyone else. “Anyway, me and Miss Nikos are the beginnings of the combination that will be lauded as the best team to come out of Beacon in generations! Lead by none other than the heir to the Schnee Dust Company herself.” She started proudly.

“...Not worried about the entrance? None of us are exactly in yet.” I asked, curious where she was getting her confidence.

She waved a hand. “Oh, please. From what everyone else is saying, I’ve gathered it’s some blase scavenger hunt. I don’t see how it could possibly be a challenge for someone of either of our statures.” 

She sneered. “Even though perhaps you and Ms. Roses more… quaint talents might struggle a little more, I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, since this is a test to root out more of the unworthy rabble, so long as you’re skilled enough to meet Beacon’s minimum of excellence, you should be fine.”

She turned and walked toward the door. “So good luck!~” She called over her shoulder, leaving me and Pyrrha.

Hm. Hero and parasite.

“...I don’t think she’s very nice.” Pyrrha said.

“Not in the top 10 of saints, nah.” I muttered.

There was a second of pause before I reached and grabbed my stuff out of my locker. I should’ve said something to her, but I was paralyzed. The goalpoint for what I understood was my life now, and someone central to my “character arc.” At least previously anyways. Words escaped me as I moved instead to get my gear.

“I’m sure you’ll do great.” I heard her say. I looked over my shoulder. She was smiling at me, not the fake polite smile she gave Weiss, but a genuine one, before she turned to leave as well.

I nodded. That was the goal anyway.

“Thanks. I’m sure you’ll get by without any trouble.” I curtly responded. I gave an appreciative nod, and finished clipping up the chestplate. As she left into the hall I was silently panicking. Why was I being such an ass on this- I was supposed to endear her to me or something to get her help, could I really not swallow my pride for this?

Or maybe I was just bad at being manipulative. I tightened the gauntlet, and exhaled an angry gust- I looked over my shoulder. She had to be out of the room now, but it had still felt like a pair of eyes had watched me for a minute longer.

I finished dressing, hooked Crocea Mors on my belt, and left to join everyone else outside, as the chime sounded over the intercom for everyone to gather on the cliffside.

* * *

  
“...the first person you make eye contact with will be your teammate for the next four years.” Ozpin finished coolly, and we heard him taking a sip from his mug through the hologram Miss Goodwitch displayed.

I heard a whimper from the right of the mini-platform I was standing on, and saw a nervous Ruby fidgeting on hers. Seemed she wasn’t comfortable with the thought. As the plate shifted as I moved my weight to get a look at her, I could understand the feeling.

They had split everyone off into separate sections, and while I couldn’t speak for any of the other groups, ours had everyone take their place on what could only be described as miniature catapults.

Ozpin continued. “This section will proceed North through the forest to the temple, where several relics will await all of you. Each pair will take one relic, and then proceed to the meeting area at the top of the mountain behind the temple. If you are unable to make it to the meeting area, or are unable to obtain a relic, it will be considered a failure, and you will be escorted off of the campus the tomorrow. Students found hoarding relics or actively attempting to impede the progress of other students will be automatically failed, and will be escorted out of the forest by a senior team. All of your progress will be monitored, and those who’s aura is broken via combat or other means will be retrieved and escorted off the campus as well.”

The tension was palpable.

“Despite these precautions, I would urge all of you to be prepared to destroy anything in your way, barring other students. This forest is filled with its own dangers that I’m sure you will discover soon enough. Are there any questions?”

I raised my hand, as well as a few others from my group, Weiss being one of them. I figured they would just cut us loose into the forest or something, and we’d just have to navigate from there. The catapults were a surprise and definitely not a welcome one. How did they expect us to land from these into the woods below?

“Wonderful! I am a hologram and cannot see any of you, though I expect you all fully understand. With that, I will leave each proctor to initiating the flight procedures of each of their following groups.” On that note, the hologram winked out.

Miss Goodwitch turned her attention to her Scroll, and tapped the screen. There was a sudden clanging, and there was a body flying through the air.

I decided to vocalize the question. “So, were we, eh, supposed to grab parachutes or something because-” Another clanging sound and Yang was whooping with glee as she shot through the air. “-I wasn’t really...aware this would be a part of the test?” I took a tentative step off the catapult.

Clang.

Ms. Goodwitch turned her attention to me. “Each student will be responsible for implementing their own landing strategy for the exam.” She explained calmly, not bringing her attention up from the screen.

Clang.

  
“Mister Arc, if you do not stay on your flight platform for the first part of the test, it will be considered an immediate failure. Would you like me to call someone to escort you now?”

Clang.

I weighed my options, and realized I didn’t really have a choice. It was either death by falling or failure. 

I stepped back onto the metal plate. “...Okay, but when you say landing strategy, what do you mean by that tho-” My question was cut into a yelp as the platform under me suddenly shot up, and rocketed me into the sky.

* * *

Ms. Goodwitch tilted her glasses, and looked down the line. All of the applicants had been launched using their “flight platforms”, and the test had now officially begun.

The only thing left would be to report to Ozpin with Bartholomew and Port, with the subsequent calling of a medical team to pick up any stragglers unable to formulate a proper “landing strategy” as Mr. Arc seemed like he would, as his seeming inability to stabilize his position in the air seemed to indicate.

She had had grievances around the test’s harshness at first, but with the news from Ozpin about Amber’s assault, combined with the recent criminal activity of Vale’s criminal population, and the Grimm attacks with the disappearances of several junior hunters…

There was too much happening all at once to be a coincidence.

She stowed the Scroll under her arm and moved to enter the building. Perhaps even if the other candidates alongside Mr. Arc that provided similarly falsified documents weren’t involved in what was going on, this would simply be a good lesson on why doing so would be a bad idea going forward.

* * *

My body tumbled through the air as I reached the apex of my flight. The wind whipped in my ears, and the forest below rolled constantly in and out of view.

I stopped screaming, and closed my eyes and tried to focus on righting myself. As I started to hurtle downwards, I managed to l change my position to face the ground as I started to plummet headfirst. I could make out the large oaks of the forest, and the green grass beneath as I passed over openings in the treeline.

It was not an improvement toward the falling situation, however.

I unfolded Mors and held the shield out in front of me, in the vain hopes it could protect me from whatever I hit first, the branches or trunk tree, or the hard earth. I closed my eyes, and resigned myself to my end. Either option would still probably kill me once my head hit the shield on impact, but maybe-

There was a whistling noise, and suddenly my entire velocity changed as something pierced my sweatshirt, just above the skin.

I yelped as I was nailed against the trunk of a solid oak, and the neck of my sweatshirt helped it and my armor strangled me for a brief second as I was pinned to a nearby tree. The sudden jerk as the recoil hit me made it look as though I was a puppet that had been jostled too hard.

After a second of realizing I wasn’t dead, and hadn’t just been gored as I swung from the trunk of the oak, I checked where I felt the feeling of cool metal brushing against my shoulder.   
A large bronze spear had nailed me to the tree. There were parts of it with crimson markings, and sections where it looked like it could turn into an alt-form.

Pyrrha.

Even without endearing her to me as someone who needed her help, she had gone and done it regardless. My only guess for why was somehow I’d made enough of a mark that she had wanted to help me out for some reason. Probably out of pity, somehow.

...Which she wouldn’t have to do again. 

Today.

I could see the ground, and it might hurt a little on the knees, but if I could just get out I could drop from the tree without too much issue. Unfortunately, with the spear pinning me like it was, I wasn’t in a good position to rip it out of the trunk, and I couldn’t spy an alt-form button anywhere near the bottom that I could see.

With time wasting, and with it my chances of getting my piece, I opted instead to shimmy out of the sweatshirt. I unhooked the clip on the chestpiece keeping me from just sliding out of the sweatshirt, and swiftly descended without the armor keeping me in place.

Hitting the ground, I fell to my knees from the height of the drop. My chestpiece clunked as it hit the ground at the exact same time. Looking up, I lamented the loss of the sweatshirt, as I swiped my gear back into my hands. Alas poor white cloth, I hardly knew ye, except for like the three years I’d worn you. I would come back for it if time allowed, but right now, that was of the essence.

“Hi Jaune!”

I spun around. Ruby waved from a couple feet behind me, and Weiss had her hand covering her face as if in great emotional labor.

“Ah, hey Ruby. You two landed alright?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Weiss as she tried to avoid discussion.

“Yep!” Ruby responded cheerfully. “Annnd it looks like me and Weiss are gonna be part-”

“No!” Weiss shot out, bringing her face up in anger. “We are not partners! You are stalking me while I try and find Miss Nikos! Who is supposed to be my partner!”

“But our eyes met like Professor Ozpin said-”

“I don’t care! I will not be stuck with you! I will not endure this hell!” 

She stormed through the underbrush past me and Ruby.

Ruby’s face fell for a minute watching her, before it perked back up to look at me. “It’s a work in progress. Did you want to roll with us as 3 of a team, or…?”

Nah. Nope. If Ruby had met Weiss, this must’ve been how the teams were getting together. Me rolling with them would probably fuck with how the teams came out. Besides that, I was already planning to roll solo on the test anyway.

“No, I’m gonna… go it alone for now. Might join up with some people later, but I’m gonna do my own thing here.” I nodded at her. “Good luck drafting a team, though.”

Her face fell more definitely this time. “Oh...well, good luck, I guess? Me and the snow princess are gonna do our best!” She dashed off after Weiss into the undergrowth. “Good luck Jaune!”

There was more yelling as Ruby caught up to her partner, more from Weiss this time, and still particularly angry. The start of a beautiful friendship.

With them gone, I decided to go in a direction that was the same as them, just in an opposite vector, so we wouldn’t meet up awkwardly. I remembered a bit about what the temple looked like, and at the very least remembered the ravine close to it where they fought the scorpion and bird Grimm, so if this direction didn’t yield anything, I’d find the ravine, and comb the edge until I could find the relics. Then I’d just wait until Jaune’s team got there, and work it all out from that point.

If I’d stuck around, I might’ve noticed as a redheaded girl leaped onto the branch from where I’d been pinned prior, and her look of confusion as she saw a pierced sweatshirt swaying lazily in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just ask her for the magic powers you jackass.
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments are greatly appreciated! As well as criticisms if you got 'em.


	11. Knight to E-5

Something felt wrong. As I made my way further into the forest, there was a spindling feeling of anxiety as my attention turned to my surroundings. The dark oaks, jutting like stalactites out of the ground to pierce the sky. The welcoming blue was covered by the treetops, the only evidence of a sky beyond it being the rays that pierced the canopy, and an inky blackness seemed to stretch to the top. The fact that I couldn’t see the tops only made it worse. Any Grimm could be out here, watching you. Waiting for the right opportunity to strike. There had been the Grimm in the show after all. The two giant ones stuck out most clearly to me, but wasn’t there a snake or something as well? They were all in here, waiting for me.

I moved my legs faster, trying to leave those intrusions thoughts behind me, but for as hard as I ran it felt like the world slowed down to make sure I experienced everything. The snap of a branch underfoot, the thump as my foot landed on a root and bounded off. Howls and chirps from animals? Unseen by the eye. Easily a Grimm. They were here, they were looking for you. I rubbed the nerves out of my palms, warm and sweaty by this time in my jog. I had jumped at the chance with the beowolves at the park years ago, so why did I feel like this now? Hadn’t I trained for this- this exact moment? At least I knew they were coming this time.

There was a roar somewhere.

I stopped my run, and doubled over, breathing heavy. My head felt like it was buzzing like a wasps nest, despite my utter confidence. I stood up, breathing heavily, as I tried to pin the sound of the roar, gripping my fists to choke out the nerves. I took some tentative steps forward, and drew Crocea Mors as I moved forward. Time moved in a minimum as I edged forward.

A big black mass lumbered into the open. It stood on its hind legs, and I could barely make out the red markings on the bone mask as it roared. The ursa minor sniffed the air, trying to catch the scent of anything it could rip apart with it’s claws, not seeing me, not yet at least. While it was distracted, I could sneak by.

But that was a pussy move right? If I killed it, and people were watching it’d be a sure sign that I was worthy of being here. If I didn’t, well… staying wouldn’t really be my problem anymore, eh? I bit my lip. It was obviously a bad idea, but if they were watching everything, me dodging around it would be suspicious right?

My decision was made for me as it interrupted my deliberation with a roar in my direction. It must’ve been my scent that it caught, though I couldn’t figure how. With Mors out, I engaged the monster. It was larger than I had thought at first, towering with two heads worth of height over me, and faint white scars criss-crossing its muscle covered, ending at the bone plates covering it’s forearms, head and chest. It’s spines were just visible past it’s head, barely poking out over it’s head as it leaned down and snarled. If this was the size of a regular Ursa, the beowolves I fought in the park really must’ve been half dead from starvation, because this much larger.

Nerves forgotten, I sprinted forward. My first action disregarded Mors’s shield as I swung the sword, my mind still in the haze of oncoming adrenaline. It made the sound of scraping metal on metal, it barely scratched the surface of it’s armor. It almost laughed as it batted me to the side, it’s massive arm sideswiping me with the force of a train as I tumbled into the dirt. 

My cheeks burned. Rookie mistake. Rookie fucking mistake. Always keep the shield up. 

Focus. 

I rolled onto my feet and brought up Mors’s shield, as it decided to try it’s hand at charging, and I made the compromise to meet it halfway. It must’ve been surprising that something so small would try to meet it, since it brought its paw up to swipe me away again. I dived out of the way, and then lunged forward to slash at it’s side, leaving a deep gash through that leaked a dark sulfurous smog from its hellish insides.

It roared in pain, and I dashed forward again. I wasn’t a patient fighter, and as I had learned from learning to fence in another life, and working with Chiron in this one, if there was a pause that levied weakness, I lunged forward to take it. It had curled up to try and cover it’s wound, but lashed out as I tried to approach.

I tried backing off, but it swung wildly trying to hit me, its other arm even splitting the seams on the bark of a tree. I caught a wild swing and was sent rolling back. Ignoring the new ache in my shield bearing arm, I got into a defensive position. 

It was breathing heavily, but looked positively enraged as its arm gushed miasma. From out of sight I heard excited yelling, the sound of a shotgun being discharged multiple times, and pained roaring from an unfortunate target. I elected to ignore it.

My opponent charged, and as it scraped its claws across the surface of Crocea Mors, I barely kept on my feet. It’s claws sent a spray of soil flying out as it briefly dug into the earth, and I used the angle to try and move past it. It tried to swing behind itself, but with it exacerbating the wound on its arm it recoiled back. I flanked to the side and thrust Mors into it’s exposed ribs, not digging nearly as deep as I had wanted to, and tried using my leverage from the side to knock it off its feet. It’s knee crumpled but as it roared in agony it got a clean hit as I barely brought my shield up in time to keep me from having my head knocked off as it lashed out. I flew for a second and rolled for two, as the Ursa tried to turn on its hurt leg, and fell on all fours as it couldn’t support its weight.

There was the sound of a shotgun being fired, much closer this time, as something bright and yellow launched out of the woods where I had heard the similar shots earlier. 

Taking it by surprise, all the Ursa could do was yelp as Yang jackknifed into its side, an audible ‘crack’ heard as an exposed rib or two broke on impact. Rolling into the grass, she took up a fighting stance while the Ursa focused on trying to get up. I took advantage of the distraction, running behind it, and axing the blade of mors through the knee of the Ursa as it tried to get up. As it swiped behind it, Yang took the advantage and clocked it across the jaw, gauntlets firing as it discharged a round into the punch. 

It collapsed onto the ground, mist faintly trailing off the body as its tongue lolled out. Yang stood ready to deal the final blow, and I took that as my cue to leave, stepping carefully back into the woods behind me. I didn’t wait for her to acknowledge me. If she was here, Blake probably wouldn’t be far behind, and I didn’t need to fuck up more of the timeline before I really needed to start changing things. After a cursory look to make sure her situation was handled, I took off into the woods again. Now, the body was fading away, and she seemed confused as to where I had went.

I pulled out my Scroll, surprisingly undamaged, and opened the map function. I zoomed into the area where I was, and looked for any landmarks, looking for a path to the temple. Zooming out, I saw myself not too far off from a ravine-like area, with a small gray strip over it, and a circular platform in the middle. Setting a route, I took off on my jog again, leaving Yang to collect her trophies. There was a small feeling of pride as I left, though it was offset by the knowledge that I had been rescued. My solo plan wasn’t going great, but it was still redeemable. I had done most of the work there, Yang had just come in for the finisher. 

And saved your sorry ass.

I cringed. I just had to make it to the relic place at the temple, and then actually contribute meaningfully once the “boss” grimm arrived. It could still work.

* * *

The forest opened up to a ravine, seemingly miles long, and an unknown measure deep. I could feel the breeze pick up as I got closer to it’s unending maw. Almost precariously perched on it, a bridge led to the other side, with a ruined almost temple-like structure bridging the two ridges of the canyon. Whoever decided their place of worship would need guardrails to keep from falling (for maybe forever) wasn’t someone I wanted designing my future home. 

I squinted trying to make out the details. I couldn’t see anything “special”, but it also didn’t seem like anyone else had made it here yet. Which I mean, was part of the plan, but not one I expected to realistically work out for me.

I took a step onto the stone bridge. Didn’t everyone fight the big Grimm here anyway? But then, where were the relics? I saw a stone tower halfway across, but crossing to it had only taught me that it was more of an observing station than anything, and from there, just crossed to the other side. 

So where…?

I caught something from the observation area. Back by the forest, to the right of where I had come out was a stone henge-esque formation, at least from how I could see it right now. I had missed it when I assumed the bridge would be where the relics were.

The limited quantity, future defining relics.

I sprinted back across the bridge to the ruins. Mystery area number two, don’t let me down.

The way the ruins had collapsed made it look more like the ancient, stone age version of a baseball field backstop. The bricks surrounding the inside looked as if nature itself had steadily crept in and eroded the walls of the ruins away, leaving an open display to anyone passing by.

A chess board sat unassuming in the middle of the ruins, with the shadows of the stone monuments providing shade to any potential players. The pieces were an ebony hue and shining gold. 

I picked up the white knight, which was heavier than I expected. It seemed like it was carved out some kind of marble instead of plastic or wood like pieces usually were, though it made sense if it was for durability's sake.

“So I’m not the only one from our section who was able to find this place then?”

It was the same bemused tone from the landing pad. I turned around, and Blake stood near the entrance.

As soon as I turned, she immediately turned her gaze, and as she walked past, I took the hint to find some moss on an overturned pillar suddenly very fascinating. Surprisingly, no one else followed after her though, which was odd considering everyone was getting into their pairings for the rest of the series, a la Ruby and Weiss right? Yang should’ve been close by, even if she had gotten sidetracked bailing my worthless ass out.

“...No partner?”

“Hm?” Her attention flicked to me as she picked up a chess piece.

“Didn’t pick up anyone on the way here? Thought that was part of the process for this?” I tried to pry. Yang had been behind me right? So did that mean Blake hadn’t been with her?

“Not looking for a partner.” She didn’t bother looking up from the board. “I’m not interested.”

I backed up. “No! No, I’m not...asking to be. I-” I scratched the back of my head. “We just met on the landing before. With that Weiss girl right?”

I could’ve sworn I heard her growl as she turned away from the board, her piece chosen.

As she stepped away, I slipped in past her, and pocketed the white knight piece. If the teams were going to be decided based on partners already, the relic choice had to be semantics or something. Though, the white knight… felt fitting for what I was aiming to do, anyway. With hopefully none of the baggage of the online use of the term.

“It’s Blake.”

“Eh?”

“My name is Blake.”

I nodded.

“Jaune.”

As she stood there, looking at the board, the temperature of the conversation seemed to be dropping, and that was the cue for either of us to leave. I took a step-

A roar shot out from the wilderness. Lighter than an Ursa’s pitch, but deep enough for sure to be a large animal. In a flash the chessboard was forgotten as Blake stared into the woods behind us. She took a step back and one hand was already on one of the twin gunblades at her side.

“What-?”

An Ursa emerged out of the woods, staggering on its hind legs. I unsheathed Crocea Mors, before my gaze moved up from the beasts center mass to its neck.

Where the redhead from the cafeteria currently had it in a headlock.

She had a short cut, wearing a pink combat jacket with a white undershirt, with a matching pink skirt and shoes. Her face was twisted in the most furious expression I’d ever seen. “DROP MOTHERFUCKER! DROP!” She screamed as electricity crackled around her, and her forearm seemed to push itself further into its neck. The Ursa backed into a tree in an attempt to knock her off, but she seemed determined to take it down for the count. With neither budging, I looked to Blake to see what she wanted to do.

She stared dumbfounded.

Popping gunshots echoed out further from the woods, and another stranger sprinted out of the forest. Black hair in an emo cut with a pink highlight up the side, and a green jacket and white combat pants, with black boots. 

Genuine Sasuke-looking motherfucker.

He flanked around it’s side while it was preoccupied with coppertop, and fired two successive shots into one knee.

With both being strangled, and the loss of one knee, the Ursa made the understandable decision to tap out. It collapsed into the dirt, either unconscious or soon to be so. The red head jumped off, and after unfolding the cartoonishly oversized hammer from the inconspicuous grenade launcher stored on her back, finished the spectacle with one grand “crunch” as the massive mallet crushed the head and mask into a fine dust.

She heaved the hammer back up as it dissipated. “Now! Ren! While the pelt is intact!” She planted the massive head of the hammer into the earth, and waved a hand in it’s direction. “C’moooon!”

Her compatriot sighed. “...like I said before, and like I know you know, there won’t ever be a “pelt” you can get from a Grimm.”

She stomped her foot. “Not with that attitude! Maybe no one’s ever been fast enough, huh?! It’s an untapped market!”

“It’s an untapped market because you can’t skin a Grimm.” he countered. “Now come on, we have to keep moving.”

She huffed. “Fiiiine. But next time though!”

They both turned away from where the Ursa had been slain, and began walking toward the ruins with Blake and I.

I decided it was time to make introductions. “So, eh, we’re not the only ones who made it after all?” I greeted, as they walked through the opening.

“It’s good to see other people made it too.” He greeted with a warm, but stalwart expression. “...Especially with the Grimm that must have snuck in to the test.” His eyes flickered to the woods. It was slight, but expectant as if something else would follow them out. “There was a King Taijitu me and Nora discovered earlier. A big one. We hurt one of the heads-” 

I was confused for a second. Wasn't Nora the robot one, and Penny the human one? I looked over to "Penny" who seemed to beaming a bit at the mention of taking down one of the Grimms heads. Alright. I guess I had got the two mixed up. Penny = Robot, Nora = Human.  
  
Good to know.

“-and we lost it in the woods but...”

I could see Blake’s eyes narrowed. “I spotted a pack of Ursa on my way here. I was able to sneak past them, but somethings definitely wrong here.”

“...Whadda you mean?” I asked. “Those are part of the entrance exam, right? Isn’t the whole killing Grimm thing just kind of a part of that?”

I felt their eyes on me. “Even if we’re going to be refining our skills toward being Huntsman, why would we be expected to fight off packs of Grimm on the first day? Most of the people who are here are from other combat academies.” Noras friend said slowly. “Maybe fighting them one one for tests in a controlled environment, sure, but with the way they're spread out here, it doesn't feel intentional.”

“And wouldn’t fighting this much live Grimm without supervision be a terrible test anyway?” Nora added. “If someone ‘fails’ they’d just get torn apart! I know this is supposed to be harsh, but that’s kinda much, right?”

“Yeah.” I stated dumbly. “I guess so. It’s just, there was one back there, so I just thought...” I trailed off. I don’t know why I had figured that Grimm would be there intentionally for the test, and tried to remember the show’s details. Hbomb hadn’t really touched on why there were Grimm in the entrance, so I guess I had just assumed. I had felt sure the Grimm were a part of the test, at least. Then again, the perks of not actually consuming the media. And Nora’s friend; what was his name, exactly? I knew everyone else by name since I’d tried to write down what I remembered, and I’d memorized who was important, even if I wasn’t really all that familiar with what they did.  
  
Though to be fair the fact that Penny was actually Nora was not a vote of confidence in my memory.

“Me and Ren are pretty lucky though!” Nora interrupted, hanging an arm around her friend, and pulling him in. “We used to roll with this mercenary team back home, so we have a little real experience in how you’re supposed to fight ‘em!”

I stared at the young man beside her. Ren, I tried to memorize. Pink highlights, dual pistols, green outfit. This guys name was Ren. Despite the attempt though, I felt my brain begin to doubt itself as it debated if I had heard wrong and it was actually Ron or something.

“Selling us a little high there.” he muttered. “They didn’t exactly let us tag along much.”

There was some silence as we contemplated what was going on.

“Well, anyway.” I said changing the subject. “Relics are over there for you guys. Only take one, that kinda deal. Then I guess we can just leave? Where are we even supposed t-”

“Ooh!” Nora noticed the table, and sprinted past us, immediately picking up a Golden rook, gently placing it on her head. “~I’m queen of the castle, I’m queen of the castle~!” She belted out in a singsong voice.

“Nora-” Ren sighed, and I shrugged at him as he passed to collect his piece. Ren and Pen-NORA. Seemed like a good duo, so being on a team with them for the rest of… my life? Seemed like it would be pretty chill.

I walked outside the structure. “I’ll watch outside for any Grimm. And anyone else, I guess?” I scanned into the forest. Some birds were fleeing from the woods, and probably from the Grimm as they prowled the forest. It was weird though, while I heard Nora still singing from the inside, I could have sworn I heard something else. Like screaming. Which was slowly getting louder. I trained my eyes on the forest, and tried to pick out if there was a fight, or if someone was wounded, but I didn’t see hide or hare of anyone. Though, from far back I could’ve sworn I could see the treeline being split as something tried to make its way toward us.

That noise was steadily rising in volume too.

I decided to ignore it, turning to the inside of the ruins where everyone else was. Blake was twitching trying to find the noise, but Nora seemed like she was drowning out whatever her and... Ron? could hear with her song, that was still going . I decided whatever was coming through the trees was more important. “Hey y’all? I think something’s-”

I lost my senses briefly, as something hit me square in the back, sending me sprawling into the dirt. Crocea Mors even unhooked and flew a couple feet as I was tossed onto the ground like a truck had slammed into me.

I staggered to my feet, and took gulps of breath as I tried to get that precious air back into my lungs. “Wha-fuckin’? Who?” I slurred, trying to find the mass that had slammed into me. A few feet from me, my assailant, a red and black shape, with a familiar bright crimson bar slowly unfurled itself from the fetal position.

“Owww…” Ruby groaned as she spread out on the ground.

“Incoming.” I heard Blake say.

“Yeah, it’s a little late now-” I moaned before something else hit me, sending me sprawling onto the ground again. My ribs moaned in pain from the impacts as I limped to my feet. The slapstick was a lot less funny when you were the one being hit.

Had I been upright, I would have seen my other assailant pirouette of my ragdolling body as a glyph formed a few feet away, and an ice ramp sprung from the earth, allowing her to glide into a landing with style. Unfortunately, though, the site was lost to me as I was getting very acquainted with the ground. It had family in Tacoma and was visiting for the Holidays.

There might’ve been a concussion.

“I told you that was a terrible idea!” Weiss hissed as Ruby got to her feet. “I cannot believe that even for a second I listened to you!”

“Well we made it didn’t we?!” Ruby shouted.

As I laid in the dirt, they continued their spat. 

I got up much more slowly, bones aching from both of the impacts, and limped over to get Crocea Mors, hooking it back onto my belt, and straightened my back, hearing it crack as I forced the ligaments back into place. I was betting I still looked very cool and absolutely wasn’t the clown of the hour right now. Eating shit twice like that, very good for the image. In any case, almost everyone was here right? I looked around the ruins. Weiss and Ruby had gone to get their relics. Blake - I avoided looking her in the eye - was watching the two fight, and Penny and Ren were discussing between them and Blake where the retrieval point would be. Which only left-

Three consecutive bad things, and one good thing all happened within a short timespan of each other. We’ll start with the good one, because it will be short.  
Yang flew out of the underbrush, as if she had been flung again by the catapults from this morning. While her trajectory didn’t seem like it would come close to me, I still couldn’t help but unfold Mors into it’s shield form in case. As she got close to the ground, her gauntlets fired, and the blowback shot her onto her feet as she slid back into the dirt, full superhero pose.

“Yang!” Ruby yelled excitedly. “Where’ve you been- I’ve been looking everywhere!”

Her older sister chuckled nervously. “Got a little sidetracked sis.”

As if on cue, Pyrrha sprinted out of the underbrush, fear evident on her face.

Weiss looked elated to see her again, a stark difference in the understanding of the situations between the two. “Miss Nikos! I’ve been trying to find you all day! Don’t worry! My partner position is still open so-”

“RUN!” Pyrrha screamed, and like a prophet of fate, mass thumping shook the ground as the scorpion Grimm arrived on the scene. 

To accompany it, a mass shadow passed by overhead. There was the sudden sound of sharpening metal, as the shadow circled overhead.

“Move!” Weiss yelled towards me. I didn’t comprehend where, but on instinct, I raised Mors shield over my head. A shower of steel feathers stabbed into the dirt around me, and I felt my knees crumple as I blocked the barrage of knife-sharp feathers. There was stinging as I felt a razor slice into my leg, just an atom out of the shields protective range. I ran back to the group as Pyrrha joined, and Yang snatched their piece from the board.

As the massive Deathstalker and Nevermore rounded on our ragtag gang, the feeling began to sink in that maybe waiting on that aura unlock maybe wasn’t the greatest idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading ya'll! So one of the big changes here is I kind of want everyone to start off on a lower power level compared to in canon. I know suspension of disbelief and all, but the fact they're squaring up on Grimm intentionally on the first day they got to the school where they're supposed to learn how to do that was always kinda weird to me. They'll still be plenty strong, but lets say it'll take a bit of work before everyone can more easily perform the ole monty magic. The start of some further canon changes with the benefit of hindsight in how they could've better tied in later? We'll see.  
> Comments are very appreciated alongside criticisms if you got them.


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